Dangerous Gift Page 12

  All that worrying. The endless nightmares and stress and peering around corners, thinking Crystal was lurking in every shadow with murderous intent. And the whole time, Crystal was here, throwing away her kingdom and being a total sap about someone who was, frankly, a very ordinary-looking brown dragon.

  “Well,” Snowfall said, sitting down, folding her wings neatly, and letting out a yawn. “You could have TOLD me instead of SNEAKING OFF and giving me a months-long PANIC ATTACK.”

  “Could I have told you?” Crystal said skeptically. “Wouldn’t you have made that exact disgusted face and tried to forbid me from leaving?”

  Snowfall made an effort to rearrange her expression, but she could tell it wasn’t working. “Probably,” she agreed. “Because what are you thinking? A MudWing?”

  “I’m right … here,” Gharial said weakly.

  “You don’t know anything about love,” Crystal said haughtily, flicking her tail at Snowfall. “Or MudWings, for that matter.”

  “Yeah, and I’m way better off that way!” Snowfall pointed out. She got up and turned back toward the center of Sanctuary. “Very well, then. If you’re really not planning to assassinate me, I’m going to bed.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Gharial wheezed as she left.

  Snowfall’s wings ached from flying all day, but she felt lighter than she could remember feeling in forever. As though her scales were made of moonlight, shining through the dark clouds that had been around her.

  Mother knew I’d be a better choice than Crystal. Because I care about the kingdom more than anything.

  She glanced up at the two moons that were already visible in the twilight sky, and her talons stumbled over a fallen branch.

  Or … she knew Crystal’s secret, so she was forced to choose me. Maybe she would have picked her, but she was stuck with me instead because she knew Crystal might leave.

  Snowfall sighed. That shining moment hadn’t lasted very long.

  She found her way back to the Sanctuary lake and waded in to wash off all the dirt of the forest and clean the scratches that MudWing had given her. Her guards looked surprisingly pleased to see her, although she guessed that was because they’d have a hard time explaining how they’d lost the queen to everyone back home. They followed her to a spot on the lakeshore, a fair distance away from all the other dragons, and formed a perimeter around her while she tried to scratch together enough moss for a comfortable sleeping spot.

  Snowfall wondered where Lynx was. Having a jolly marvelous time with Winter and Moon, no doubt. Romping around Sanctuary, telling stories about everything Snowfall had already done wrong as queen, laughing at her. Can you believe she was dumb enough to get an animus-touched ring stuck on her claw? That sort of thing.

  She tried once more to pull it off, and when that didn’t work (of course), she lay down and stared gloomily at the ring in the darkness. It had nothing to say for itself. Not even a smug twinkle tonight.

  Remember what I told you, she thought at it fiercely. I demand a specific vision! I want to know what happened to animus magic! If you must haunt my dreams tonight, that is the vision I choose to summon. I am your queen and that is my command. You hear me?

  Impudent silence from the ring.

  Snowfall sighed, closed her eyes, and drifted uneasily toward sleep.

  Her wings are green and they miss the sun. Her claws hurt from walking on stone instead of dirt for days. She is hungry; there is not enough food for all the dragons they are hiding, but every time someone goes out to get more, they fly back with terrifying stories of HiveWing swarms hunting the savanna.

  For them — the dragons who burned Bloodworm Hive? Or for Sundew and her allies? She’s not sure.

  A gray dragon is curled beside her, asleep with his head resting on her shoulder and his tail twined around hers. He is the sweetest dragon the world has ever seen. He thinks she’s a hero for destroying his home. He loves her when she’s angry just as much as when she’s cheerful. She has no idea how she fell in love with a gentle SilkWing, but she will murder anyone who hurts him.

  Another LeafWing enters the cave and she motions for him to whisper so he won’t wake Grayling.

  “Strange happenings above,” he says quietly. “Pokeweed just got back, and he says he saw SilkWings flying with the HiveWings.”

  “What’s strange about that?” she asks. “SilkWings have been working for HiveWings for so long. I’m sure some have been forced to help with the hunt, that’s all.”

  “No,” Hemlock says with a sigh. “All flying the same way. In formation. Exact wing movements. All in sync.” He took a deep breath. “And they had white eyes.”

  She blinks at him. “That’s impossible. Wasp’s power doesn’t work on SilkWings.”

  “I guess it does now.” He rubs his face.

  “Where’s Pokeweed?” she asks. “I want to know exactly what he saw.”

  “He went deeper into the caves,” Hemlock answers. “Still trying to catch those monkey-looking creatures.”

  They’ve seen the underground monkeys scurrying out of sight a few times, but none of the three LeafWings have managed to eat one yet. They’re either faster than they look or surprisingly clever.

  “There’s something worse,” Hemlock says reluctantly. “One of the SilkWings said she saw LeafWings up there, too.”

  She flinches so hard she knocks Grayling awake. He sits up, yawning and brushing her wings with his. He’s too thin. She wishes she could protect him better — from the hunger, and from this news.

  “That can’t be right,” she says to Hemlock with a low hiss.

  “We saw all that smoke in the north,” he says bleakly. “Maybe Queen Wasp burned the Poison Jungle to punish us for burning Bloodworm Hive. Maybe our tribe lost and now —”

  “No. They’re out there somewhere,” Grayling interrupts. He gives her a look with more trust in it than she’s ever felt about anything. “The LeafWings have survived terrible things before. They’ll fight back. The HiveWings won’t win; they can’t.”

  She wants to feel that way so badly. She doesn’t know what will hurt more: to believe the worst, so if it’s true she can’t feel any lower … or to hold on to hope, but run the risk of being crushed.

  “I wish we could do something,” she says. “I wish we knew what was happening. I thought Belladonna would have sent us a message by now.”

  “Maybe we should go fight the HiveWings,” Grayling suggests. “With all the SilkWings from Bloodworm Hive, there are so many of us down here — couldn’t we fight them?”

  “Not if Queen Wasp can control SilkWings and LeafWings now.” She doesn’t add that SilkWings are kind of useless fighters. She takes Grayling’s front talons as his face crumples. “Don’t worry. Wasp is never getting you. Never, never, never.”

  But what is she going to do? They can’t hide underground for the rest of their lives. But if they can’t go back to the Poison Jungle either … is there anywhere they can possibly be safe?

  * * *

  When Snowfall awoke, there was another dragon lying close beside her, one wing resting on hers, and she had to stare at the dragon’s soothing white scales for entirely too long before she realized it wasn’t Grayling.

  Of course it wasn’t Grayling. Grayling was stuck on the other side of the ocean. Grayling was a SilkWing in a cave under a continent Snowfall was never going to see, which was great news because that continent sounded more and more dreadful every time she visited it.

  No, the impertinent dragon sleeping next to her was Lynx.

  Snowfall poked her face until Lynx’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Ow,” Lynx grumbled. “Rude.” She turned her face away and buried it under her other wing.

  “What’s rude is sleeping on the queen’s tail,” Snowfall barked. “Get off!”

  Lynx rolled away, still muttering, and then suddenly shook herself and sat up. “What happened last night?” she asked, blinking. “Did you have another vision?”

  “Y
es,” Snowfall admitted reluctantly, even though this was exactly why she’d woken Lynx in the first place. “I was a stupid LeafWing this time.”

  “One of the ones here?”

  “No.” Snowfall shook her head. “Her name is Bryony. She knows that Sundew dragon, though.”

  Lynx slammed her talon down on something small and furry that was scurrying through the undergrowth. “Ooooh, maybe that means you’re supposed to tell Sundew about your vision.”

  “BLECH. NO. I do NOT need a thousand more dragons having opinions about my magic head trips. One is FAR MORE THAN ENOUGH.” Snowfall glared at the ring. She was starting to feel a little more like herself, but the quiet, worried Bryony personality was still shifting under her scales, and it was SO UNSETTLING.

  “You stupid broken thing,” she hissed balefully at the opal. “That vision had nothing to do with animus magic.”

  Shimmer shimmer shimmer, the opal winked back serenely.

  Snowfall stood up and flapped her wings, trying to shake off the lingering strands of affection for the adorable gray SilkWing. He was different from the others. He was special and beloved and WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO HER? Melting like a snowball in the desert over a strange dragon she’d never met who was definitely not her type even if she did?!

  Was this how Crystal felt about that MudWing? Snowfall shot another suspicious glance at the ring. Was it trying to hit her over the head with a lesson about sympathy and understanding? YUCK.

  Am I going to have dreams like this for the rest of my life? Will I still be me if I spend every night as an entirely different dragon?

  “I saw Crystal yesterday,” she informed Lynx abruptly. “She lives here now.”

  Lynx’s eyes widened and she put down her half-eaten prey. “No way! She was here the entire time?” She grinned. There was a tuft of mouse fur caught in her teeth. “So, wait … doesn’t that mean she was not plotting against you, after all?”

  “She ran away to be with a MudWing,” Snowfall said with a snort.

  “Hmmm,” Lynx said. “Sounds like maybe you were being extremely paranoid and anxious about nothing, then? And just possibly that might apply to other things you are extremely paranoid about?”

  “You are the most aggravating dragon in the world,” Snowfall observed. She had a sense that normally she would be furious with Lynx, and that she should be yelling and perhaps throwing her in the lake, but it was hard to get worked up about a little insubordination when Bryony was stuck underground and Grayling was in danger of being mind-controlled and she had no idea if Tau had escaped Jewel Hive or whether any of them would ever find one another.

  Lynx studied her for a moment with a crease of worry along her forehead, and then she shook herself vigorously. “Come see what our lunatic friend Winter has done.”

  “Friend” seemed like a bit of a stretch in Snowfall’s opinion, but she was definitely up for a distraction, so she followed Lynx along the lakeshore, back through Sanctuary. Not far from the water’s edge, in an area that had been cleared of trees, there was an odd space surrounded by a tall fence. The fence was made of entire tree trunks lashed together, so it was very high, and Snowfall had to crane her neck to see over it.

  Inside, there was a dragon-made pool of water, a pile of leaves and pine needles with a small leaf canopy over it, and something that darted around so energetically it took Snowfall a moment to figure out what it was.

  “Great Ice Spirits,” she said to Lynx. “I thought he was over his scavenger obsession!”

  Winter poked his head out of a hut near the fence. “I’m not,” he said huffily. “Why would I be? Scavengers are fascinating!”

  “You are so weird!” Snowfall said. “Nobody else keeps their lunch in a pretty cage for months to ‘study’ it!”

  “She’s not LUNCH,” he said, outraged. “My scavenger is a research subject. I’m learning so much about them! They’re really smart!”

  Snowfall rolled her eyes. “What happened to that droopy one Mother let you have when you went off to school?”

  “Bandit. I had to let him go,” Winter said tragically. “I have no idea what was wrong with him. But this one is different!”

  “This one has bitten him five times,” Lynx whispered to Snowfall.

  “She’s very brave,” he said with a hint of pride. “She’s come up with all kinds of ways to escape.”

  Snowfall peered over the top of the fence again. The scavenger had a long tail of dark fur on her head, tied up with a scrap of fabric that might have been bright yellow at some point. She was now marching up and down the length of the fence, shoving each of the logs and testing them for footholds.

  “Moon says she’s really mad,” Lynx told Snowfall.

  “What?” Snowfall said. “Why would Moon be mad about this?”

  “No, I mean, the scavenger is mad. She really wants to get out of there.”

  Snowfall frowned at Lynx. “Are you trying to suggest that that NightWing can read scavenger minds as well?”

  “Not exactly,” Winter answered. “It’s not as clear as reading dragon minds, but she gets a sense of their emotions. She says they’re just as strong and complicated as dragon emotions,” he added with a little smile.

  “I’m not going to dignify this conversation with any more of my attention,” Snowfall said. “That is the MOST RIDICULOUS THING I’VE EVER HEARD.”

  “Winter’s being ridiculous?” a new voice suddenly chimed in. “If so, that’s me, I did that! All credit to me! I built his entire sense of humor from the ground up!”

  The IceWings whirled around to find a pair of SandWings emerging from the trees. The one speaking was in front, bounding toward Winter with an irrepressible grin on his face. He was the one from the beach, Snowfall was pretty sure — Moon’s friend.

  “Oh no,” Winter said drily. “There goes the neighborhood.”

  “Aw, I can see it in your eyes; you missed me so much!” said the SandWing. He threw one wing affectionately over Winter’s shoulders and nudged the side of his neck with his snout. “I missed you, too, best friend.”

  Snowfall raised her eyebrows at Winter, who said, “I have no idea who this scruffy-snout is.”

  “His favorite dragon in the world,” the SandWing said with genuine delight. “Did we ever officially meet, Your Majesty?” he asked Snowfall. “I’m Qibli. Queen Thorn’s second-in-command, basically.”

  “Ha!” said the other SandWing, and then started actually laughing as Qibli gave her an offended look.

  Lynx nudged Snowfall in the ribs, but she had already recognized the laughing dragon. Snowfall had made a diplomatic trip to each of the kingdoms soon after becoming queen, very much against her will, but apparently it was one of those things a queen was required to do.

  “Queen Thorn,” she said, inclining her head exactly the right amount.

  “Queen Snowfall,” Thorn replied, doing the same. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

  “Oh?” Snowfall said. The spikes along her spine ruffled up as she braced herself for a lecture about how real queens behaved. No, wait — that was more Queen Coral’s style. Queen Thorn didn’t care much for rules and traditions. But that also meant she could be horribly direct about sharing her opinions.

  “I don’t like the sound of that thing across the ocean,” said Thorn. “Thank the moons Pyrrhia’s at peace, so we can all talk about it together like sensible dragons instead of snarling hyenas.”

  Pyrrhia’s at peace. Snowfall had never thought about it that way. Sure, the War of SandWing Succession was over, but her mother had been murdered pretty recently by a NightWing. Snowfall wouldn’t describe her feelings about that tribe as exactly peaceful.

  That didn’t make her a snarling hyena, though! Seriously!

  “Are the other queens on their way?” Snowfall asked.

  “Riptide said they could be here by tonight,” Qibli answered cheerfully. He gave Winter another hopeful smile, and his earring caught the light of a sunbeam.

  Th
at earring — the earring. Or at least, it looked exactly like the earrings that had saved her tribe from Darkstalker and the plague. She remembered them arriving, sacks and sacks of them, brought by IceWings who lived in Possibility, sent by Queen Thorn in the Sand Kingdom. Snowfall’s very first task as queen had been making sure that every IceWing in her kingdom received one, to reverse the effects of the plague.

  For a long time, they weren’t sure if it was safe to take them off again. Every IceWing had gone around for months wearing them, and then one day someone took theirs off, to see what would happen, and the plague didn’t come back, so gradually they had disappeared off the dragons. But everyone kept theirs tucked away into safe spots just in case … just in case they were needed again.

  Just in case he wasn’t really gone.

  Snowfall had been the last IceWing to remove her earring. She still carried it with her, in the pouch around her neck.

  It was so strange to see the exact same earring on this enthusiastic SandWing, just a regular little accessory instead of the thing that had saved her entire tribe.

  “Are you all right?” Lynx whispered in her ear.

  Snowfall pulled herself up and folded her wings regally. “Yes. Always.”

  And then something flashed behind her eyes like a bolt of lightning, and her head split in two, and everything around her — Sanctuary, the scavenger enclosure, Queen Thorn, Lynx, Snowfall herself — all vanished into thin air.

  His claws are shaking. They are his claws and they are not his claws.

  His claws would never seize a fleeing dragonet from the webs and drag her into the Hive. His voice would never shout orders at terrified SilkWings; his talons would never threaten them with this spear. Where did this spear even come from? How long has he been like this? The days are blurring together, and he hasn’t been his real self for so long.

  The queen is in his head, in his muscles, in his talons. It’s worse than he ever imagined, any of the times he tried to imagine how the HiveWings must feel as she takes over. If he pulls himself all the way back inside and stares inward, he can lose time, knowing his body is moving without him.