Dangerous Gift Page 10

  And what happens if even more dragons follow them here from Pantala? Is Cinnabar trying to bring all the rest of the SilkWings over, too? ALL of them, from all the Hives?

  Where else can they go, with Queen Wasp and her brainwashed HiveWings controlling all of Pantala?

  Snowfall cut off that train of thought with a hiss. That’s THEIR problem. Not MY problem. I have IceWings to take care of! I’m not responsible for anyone else and I don’t care about them!

  The terror seemed to still be lingering in her veins, though, and she couldn’t shake the urgent, panicked feeling that she had to get an entire city of dragons to safety before it was too late. She wondered how old the vision was — had that scene happened last night, while Snowfall dreamt it, or days earlier, like her vision of Atala?

  If it happened days ago … where were Tau and Jewel and Scarab now? Safely hidden, or captured?

  DON’T CARE. STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM.

  “Let’s go,” she ordered her guards. They took up their positions in formation around her and followed the SilkWings and LeafWings away from the ocean, east into the desert sky. Snowfall glanced back and saw Jerboa sitting outside her hut, watching them leave.

  Why doesn’t she seem to care more that her magic isn’t working? Snowfall wondered. If she’d been an animus dragon, and then suddenly her power was gone, she’d have absolutely freaked out. Jerboa, on the other talon, seemed mostly amused by how much that annoyed Snowfall.

  It was still possible she was lying to Snowfall. But if animus magic was working, wouldn’t Tsunami’s gang of righteous do-gooders have used it to bring all the Pantalan dragons to safety? Or to stop Queen Wasp?

  They definitely would. They used it to end the plague and stop Darkstalker. They could solve all the Pantalan dragons’ problems with a snap of their claws if they had magic right now.

  So why don’t they?

  Why would magic just … stop working?

  Snowfall eyeballed the opal ring. “Do you know anything about this?” she growled at it. “Why do YOU work and actual useful magic doesn’t?” She shook out her talons grumpily and glared at it again. “You know what, how about instead of filling my head with sympathy and nonsense, you give me some information I really need? Like a vision that explains what happened to magic?”

  Maybe that’s what she was doing wrong. Maybe she needed to tell the ring what vision she wanted. Oh, that would be simple and SO great! Visions of anything she wanted! Why hadn’t she thought of this earlier?

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “You hear me, ring? Tonight, no more SilkWing nightmares. Just a nice, uncomplicated scene where I find out why animus magic isn’t working. This is a good plan.”

  The opal caught the light and sparkled rainbows at her. Snowfall couldn’t tell if those were “absolutely, Your Majesty, anything you say” rainbows or “ha ha ha! I’ll give you whatever I want to give you and there’s nothing you can do about it ha ha!” rainbows.

  I guess I’ll find out tonight.

  She flew after the ribbon of dragons stretched across the sky, trying to feel confident that she’d solved her problem.

  But it was hard to shake the ominous feeling that maybe, just perhaps, she’d stumbled into a more dangerous magic than she’d expected.

  The IceWings, LeafWings, and SilkWings flew in their weird, mismatched crowd over the desert, which, incidentally, was a DREADFUL place. The sun beat down mercilessly, drying the scales on Snowfall’s back until she felt as if they might crack off. How could anyone live in a place like this? It was SO HOT. BLEH.

  The LeafWings looked almost as unhappy about the heat as she was. Their wingbeats slowed as they flew farther and farther from the ocean and the vast, treeless landscape spread out below them. Rocks and sand and sand and rocks and a whole lot of nothing.

  Jerboa kept saying that nobody would want the Ice Kingdom, but who would prefer THIS? Of course dragons would rather live in a cool, beautiful, snowy, crystalline place full of polar bears and walruses. What did they have to eat here? Tiny brittle lizards? Bony, gross-smelling camels? It made much more sense that dragons would want to invade the Ice Kingdom than here. Snowfall was absolutely right to worry about defending it.

  Moon had some kind of map from her SandWing friend that showed each oasis along their route, so they were able to stop twice for water. Snowfall waded all the way into the tiny springs, trying to soak every drop into her scales. It suddenly seemed slightly insane to her that her tribe had ever fought with the SandWings, when this territory was the absolute worst and they couldn’t possibly want anything here.

  It was late in the afternoon when they caught their first glimpse of the mountains ahead, like a long, giant dragon spine curled across the horizon. They were mostly green and brown, but dappled with glorious snow at the peaks.

  Tau has never seen mountains, Snowfall thought, and then caught herself thinking that and was furious.

  So WHAT? she demanded of her brain. I’ve never seen one of these “Hive” cities and I’m PERFECTLY HAPPY ABOUT IT.

  She put on a burst of speed to catch up to Hazel, who looked a little surprised to be approached, but too tired to have much more of a reaction.

  “Hello, question for you,” Snowfall said. “How many dragons did you leave behind?”

  “On Jerboa’s beach?” Hazel asked. “About —”

  “No, no,” Snowfall interrupted. “Back on Pantala. How many dragons did you leave there?”

  “Oh.” Hazel blinked. “Well, the … the LeafWing army, I guess you’d call it — everyone who went with Queen Sequoia to fight. They must have been exposed to the breath of evil right away … they’re probably under Wasp’s power now.” She bit her lip and furrowed her brow and did some more odd things with her face, which Snowfall eventually realized were all Hazel trying not to cry. “I hope some of them managed to escape, though. And then there’s the rest of the SilkWings in all the Hives. Hundreds of them, but I don’t know exactly how many. The ones who flew over with us are only from three of the Hives, and they were in a group called the Chrysalis. They’d come to the jungle to help us fight the HiveWings.”

  “But that went horribly wrong,” Snowfall said. “And now all the SilkWings you left behind are in danger.”

  “Yes …” Hazel trailed off and gave her a sideways, confused expression. “You sound kind of worried about them?”

  “I’m not!” Snowfall cried. “I’m definitely not!” Maybe just a little worried about Tau. But not really! Only because of a dopey magic spell giving me weird dreams! “No,” she added firmly. “If I am at all WORRIED, it is because I am WONDERING whether all THOSE dragons are going to end up floundering into my kingdom sometime soon as well.”

  “It is very hard to get across the ocean,” Hazel said. “I — I mean, we hope they’ll try … but I can’t predict how many, or if they’ll succeed, or when, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “NIGHTWING!” Snowfall bellowed, startling Hazel into losing her flight rhythm for a moment. Up ahead, Moon twisted around, looking puzzled. Snowfall beckoned to her, and Moon came soaring back to fly on the other side of Hazel.

  “Yes?” Moon said cautiously.

  “You can see the future, can’t you?” Snowfall demanded. “Winter told me you had some prophecy about Darkstalker, not that it helped anyone at all. Are you ever useful? Can you predict if the other SilkWings are going to make it to this continent?”

  “I — that’s not —” Moon stammered, flustered. “My visions aren’t specific like that. I caught a glimpse of this group arriving, but I haven’t seen any other Pantalan dragons. That doesn’t mean they won’t make it, though.”

  “And we can’t poke your head to find out?” Snowfall asked. “Like, summon a vision, or whatever?”

  “I thought you could,” Hazel admitted. “I mean, I thought Clearsight could, from what I’ve read. So I thought you all could see whatever you wanted.”

  Moon shook her head. “Clearsight’s power was unusua
l. All I get is flashes whenever the universe feels like giving them to me, and the occasional cryptic prophecy.” She shut her mouth quickly, but Snowfall had already caught the shift in her eyes.

  “AHA!” she said. “You had a ‘cryptic prophecy’ about all this, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right, Tsunami said you did!” Hazel’s eyes lit up. “Did it mention the breath of evil? Did it tell you how we can rescue everyone and save Pantala?”

  “Not exactly,” Moon admitted reluctantly. “I mean, the key word here is ‘cryptic,’ remember?”

  “Tell us anyway,” Snowfall commanded. “We will un-cryptic it for you.”

  Moon sighed, and then recited:

  “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.”

  There was silence for several wingbeats after she finished. Hazel stared off into the sky ahead of them, her brow furrowed, her mouth moving as she repeated the prophecy quietly to herself.

  “Well,” Snowfall said finally. “I do not like that. No, I do not. Darkstalker was quite enough great evil for me.” She saw Moon flinch when she said Darkstalker’s name, which was interesting. Did the NightWing feel guilty about everything that had happened with him? Or did she feel guilty because she was totally lying about him actually being gone? Wasn’t it possible that HE was the “great evil”? After all, how many “great evils” could there possibly be?

  “Hang on,” she said, her thoughts swerving onto a new track. “Did you say none of the tribes will survive?”

  “That’s the prophecy,” Moon said, spreading her front talons in an “I have no idea” gesture.

  “But you mean none of the Pantalan tribes,” Snowfall clarified. “Right? Just those three. Not the seven tribes on this continent. It has nothing to do with us. Right?”

  “I think it might mean all of us,” Lynx said, suddenly and very unwelcomely. Snowfall hadn’t even noticed her pop up below them. “I mean, it starts off talking to us — ‘turn your eyes to the land across the sea,’ right? And then ‘face a great evil with talons united’ — that sounds like it’s talking about all the tribes, here and there.”

  “Bosh,” said Snowfall. “We can’t unite to face an evil that’s all the way across the ocean, even if we wanted to. Which, to be clear, the IceWing tribe DOES NOT.”

  “There are seven tribes here?” Hazel asked Moon. “Each with its own queen?”

  Moon nodded. “Yes. We should call a council and see if they’ll all come,” she said. “They should know about you and Pantala and everything happening over there.”

  Oh, marvelous, Snowfall thought grouchily. All the queens who annoy me in one place, arguing and telling me what to do. On the plus side, staying in Sanctuary for a queen council would mean avoiding the wall for a few more days. But listening to Thorn and Ruby and Moorhen and Coral and worst of all Glory go on and ON about unity and working together and “mutual trust” and all THAT sort of nonsense was basically Snowfall’s NIGHTMARE. BLERGH.

  “I’ll tell Tsunami,” Moon said, tilting her wings. “I’m sure she can organize some dragons from Sanctuary to take messages to the queens.” She flew off toward the pair of SeaWings.

  “It’s amazing that all your queens get along so well,” Hazel said wistfully. “I wish we could have three tribes peacefully coexisting on Pantala.”

  “HA!” Snowfall said. “Peacefully coexisting! We just got out of a war!” Two, technically, if you count the IceWing-NightWing war I TRIED to have before that busybody animus interfered.

  “You did?” Hazel said, wide-eyed.

  “Long story,” Snowfall added with a snort.

  “I’ll explain it,” Lynx offered, and then spent the rest of the flight telling Hazel about the War of SandWing Succession and how it started and all about the prophecy and how the shiny heroic dragonets finally ended it. Personally, Snowfall thought they got an awful lot of credit considering the real heroes were a deadly snake and an old enchanted orb. If there’d been an IceWing in the prophecy, she probably would have ended the war way sooner and more neatly. But whatever, not Snowfall’s problem.

  As they started their descent into Sanctuary, Snowfall was startled to see how much bigger it was than she’d imagined. The new dragon village was built along a stream trickling downhill from a lake in the foothills of the Claws of the Clouds mountains. Some of the new dragon buildings were in the wildflower meadows, while some were under the trees of the forest. It was VERY disorganized, as far as Snowfall could see. Each dragon home looked completely different from the next. Here there was a weird mound of clay with a hole at the top, then right beside it there’d be a rough cabin made of logs and leaves, while over by the lake there were a couple of crooked structures poking half in and half out of the water.

  Upon landing, Snowfall noticed that there were also more dragonets than she’d expected, and some of them were really odd-looking. The first one she saw was a tiny thing playing in the stream, pouncing on fish. Its scales were a deep mahogany brown like a MudWing’s, but speckled with phosphorescent bluish scales along its spine and wings, and as far as she could tell its talons were webbed like a SeaWing’s.

  Nearby, a little cluster of orange and red dragonets were gathered around a SkyWing, listening as he read them a scroll. But two of the red dragonets had scorpion-like tail barbs, and one of the orange ones had a scattering of black scales across its nose.

  Snowfall’s brain was still contorting itself around this information when a sky-blue SeaWing came bounding out of the trees toward them.

  “Tsunami!” he cried as though the sun itself had arrived to visit him. His whole FACE was full of joy, which made NO sense, because who could possibly be that excited to see the very absolute most annoying member of the dragonet prophecy?

  “Hey, Riptide,” she said in a voice that sounded as confident as she usually did, but didn’t quite match the funny look on her face. The two SeaWings awkwardly tried to hug and their wings all went in the wrong directions and they ended up bonking heads and then jumping back and flapping about for a bit.

  Snowfall guessed there was something she could infer from their strange interaction, but she wasn’t all that interested. She was looking around for her cousin Winter.

  Was that a flash of white scales in the trees? Snowfall squinted, but whoever it was had vanished again. Or maybe it had been a trick of the light.

  “It’s so great to see you!” Riptide was saying to Tsunami. “I was hoping you’d come see all the changes we …” His voice trailed off as his eyes followed the line of dragons behind her up into the sky, where more and more dragons were arriving as the slowpokes caught up. “What —” Riptide tried. “What — um —”

  “Surprise!” Tsunami said buoyantly. “New dragons for Sanctuary!”

  “New — all these — but —” Riptide sputtered.

  “Are those RainWings?” asked a new voice from Snowfall’s right. She turned and saw Winter splashing through the stream, staring up at the arriving SilkWings. Hmm. So that couldn’t have been him in the woods.

  “Winter!” Lynx cried with delight. He jumped and dropped his gaze to her, and then to Snowfall standing right next to her.

  “Lynx?” he said in a wondering voice. “Snowfall? What are you doing here?”

  Lynx cleared her throat and bobbed her head meaningfully in Snowfall’s direction.

  “I mean — apologies — Your Majesty,” he said to Snowfall. “Welcome to Sanctuary.” He even bowed properly, which was
mollifying.

  “I have come to inspect this new city,” Snowfall informed him. “And to make sure these peculiar dragons settle here and don’t try to come back into the Ice Kingdom.”

  “Not that they can,” Lynx observed. “Given the cliff and everything.”

  “Are they hybrids?” Winter asked, tilting his head at a LeafWing who was burying her snout in the stream. “We have a lot of those here. SeaWing-RainWing, maybe? But there’s so many —” His eyes widened as a SilkWing landed, stumbling, beside Tsunami. “That dragon has four wings,” he whispered to Lynx. “Wait, so does that one! And that one!”

  “They’re from the other continent!” Lynx burst out, flinging excitement in all directions. “It’s real, Winter! It’s full of dragons! Totally different tribes! The colorful ones are SilkWings and the green ones are LeafWings. And there are also two … there, see the yellow-and-black ones? Those are HiveWings.”

  Snowfall had almost never seen her cousin look confused, let alone this discombobulated. It kind of made the whole trip to Sanctuary worthwhile.

  Something caught her eye in the trees again — a flash of reflected light in the bushes, a shimmer of scales behind the leaves. But when she turned toward it, there was nothing but wind aimlessly stirring the forest floor.

  She trusted her instincts, though. Another IceWing was hidden over there, watching her.

  And whoever it was, they did not want to be seen.

  “Are there other IceWings here?” Snowfall asked Winter.

  “A few,” he said with a guarded expression. “Didn’t you know that?”

  She looked down her snout at him. “Of course I know that. I merely wish to know how many, and who exactly.”

  “I think I … shouldn’t be the one to tell you that, Your Majesty,” he said. “I don’t know their reasons for being here. But I’m sure they’ll tell you, if you want to ask them.”