Dangerous Gift Read online

  But right now, he can’t do that. He’s in his own Hive. The place he fled with Cricket and Swordtail not so long ago. He is storming through familiar hallways, smashing displays in the market, rounding up all the SilkWings who were peacefully lying in the sun in the Mosaic Garden. He sees dragons he knows from school, who stare at him in paralyzed terror.

  They know he would never do this, so this is how they discover the queen can control SilkWings now, as well as HiveWings. Except it’s not the queen … it’s even worse. But they don’t know that yet.

  They look at their own talons, wondering when it will happen, if they’ll remember it — all the things Blue wondered, too.

  But there’s a process. The new, stronger breath of evil plant is needed for the process, and the dragons who were supposed to make it grow faster escaped.

  Sundew. No one has found her yet, or Cricket, as far as Blue knows. She might be safe … maybe they’re even in the Distant Kingdoms now, far from all of this.

  Carelessness, Wasp’s voice hisses in his head. This was a strange discovery, that although she can’t read his thoughts, he can hear hers, sometimes very clearly.

  She’s furious about the SilkWings that have slipped through her claws already. Hundreds of them vanished during the two days while her army was rescuing every last scrap of the breath of evil plant from the burning jungle.

  The jungle she made me burn, he thinks, but has to stop himself from thinking.

  They were hunting for LeafWings at the same time, but found none.

  None.

  How did they ALL ESSSSSSSCAPE?

  Where could they have gone?

  I will find them. And destroy them.

  At least I have their army and their queen. Inside his head, the queen is thrilled and the queen is furious at the same time. Wasp wants to kill Queen Sequoia and all the LeafWings in her power, but the breath of evil won’t let her.

  It controls her just as completely as she controls the HiveWings.

  And it needs the LeafWings; it needs any hint of leafspeak they have, to grow more of the plant as fast as they can.

  Once there is enough, they can take over the SilkWings — but only if they can find all the SilkWings. And most of them went into hiding while the jungle burned. Blue was with Queen Wasp’s army as they searched Hive after Hive. Yellowjacket Hive: empty, except for Wasp’s mean, bewildered sister, Lady Yellowjacket. Wasp Hive: empty. Jewel Hive: empty, and Queen Wasp was especially furious about that, because where did Lady Jewel and Lady Scarab go? Did they run off WITH the SilkWings?

  I knew I should have killed them years ago.

  That’s when she realized they needed to get ahead of whoever was warning the Hives, if there was any chance left to do that, and she sent warriors out to all the Hives. That’s how Blue ended up here, in his own home. He’d hoped it would be empty, too — but whoever was coming to warn them was already too late.

  He’d seen his mothers, Burnet and Silverspot, but he didn’t think they saw him, which was a small mercy. They were in the crowd being shoved into the Hatchery; that’s where the SilkWings were to be kept until the breath of evil was ready for them.

  And I have to stand guard, Blue thinks. Over my own friends and family. I can’t even talk to them or tell them I missed them or that I’m sorry about this.

  When tears come, as they often do, he can’t wipe them away, because his claws are not his claws.

  They’re my claws.

  All their claws are my claws.

  She enjoys looking through this little SilkWing, the flamesilk who dared to defy her, but she has a lot of dragons to wield and can’t stay entangled in any one for too long. The traps are set in Cicada Hive and Hornet Hive. Whoever has been warning the SilkWings will arrive to save them, and then her toothy leaves will snap shut and they’ll be caught like flies in a plant’s jaws.

  Wasp frowns. That was not her metaphor.

  “Get out of my head,” she says with a hiss, but it doesn’t bother answering.

  This will all be worth it. Sometimes you have to work with monsters to get the power you want.

  Three tribes, all bowing to her. It’s what she’s wanted all along, isn’t it? She knew the SilkWings and LeafWings were a threat from the moment she saw them, as a young dragonet. They were different; dangerous; strange and terrifying.

  Those tribes would have attacked me first if I hadn’t attacked them.

  If everyone is evil, the only way to survive is to be the most evil.

  SilkWings and LeafWings are different from us and need to be controlled.

  As long as she controls everything, she’ll be safe. Everyone will be safe. No one can threaten her when they can’t even lift a claw against her.

  Everyone was out to get me but I showed them, and now they are all mine.

  This is what it means to be a true queen: complete control. Nothing to fear. No one to stop her or argue with her or complain about her. They fear HER, and that is how it should be.

  She is pacing, and she realizes her thoughts are spiraling down an uncontrolled path again. She’ll have to kill something to calm herself down.

  * * *

  Snowfall was wrenched very suddenly out of Wasp and landed hard, painfully, back in her own mind. It felt as though she had just plummeted from a great height, and midway she had turned from one dragon into another, completely different dragon.

  Or more like a third dragon. Blue to Wasp to me.

  Blue was the most opposite of herself she’d ever been, and the most powerless. It was AWFUL and she HATED it and she would never never forgive the ring for doing this to her.

  But Wasp … Wasp was worse, because Snowfall had heard echoes of her own fears inside Wasp’s head.

  I’m not like her, am I? I would never make the choices she’s made … would I?

  Such as accepting a strange magic I don’t know enough about in order to make myself more powerful? asked an uncomfortable part of her brain.

  She realized she was lying on grass, and her face was wet, as though someone had flung part of the lake over her head. The air smelled like scavengers and pine trees and distant snow. She was definitely on her own continent again.

  I’m not Wasp or Blue. I am me. I’m Snowfall. I’ve always been Snowfall.

  I don’t WANT to be anyone else! Ever again!

  Someone was shaking her shoulder.

  “Wake up, please wake up,” the someone said. “Snowfall? Snowfall?”

  That must be Lynx, disrespectfully forgetting how a queen should be addressed, again.

  Snowfall cracked her eyes open. Her skull hurt as though she’d whacked it on something when she fainted. Well … not fainted, exactly. Got taken over by a stupid magic vision.

  Oh NO.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen! A vision in the middle of the day, when she was wide-awake? She’d thought they only came at night, like normal dreams. Could she be attacked by visions anytime?!

  She shoved herself up to a sitting position and seized the ring, trying to yank it off.

  Lynx let out a yelp that sounded like joy and threw her wings around Snowfall. “That was terrifying!” she cried. “Please don’t ever do that again!”

  “Do … what exactly?” Qibli’s voice asked. Snowfall looked up and realized there was a whole circle of dragons around her, expressions ranging from puzzled to curious to worried. An entirely oversized audience for her collapse. Qibli, Winter, Queen Thorn, and Lynx were all there, but at some point, they’d been joined by Sundew, Luna, and Cricket, who was holding the squirmy little HiveWing.

  Cricket. Snowfall’s heart did a hideous little jump-stutter thing at the sight of her. She could almost feel Blue leaning through her scales, shooting out beams of love at the bespectacled dragon. UGH HORRIFYING. Cricket was perhaps a scale closer to Snowfall’s type than Grayling, but still several continents off!

  “I’m fine!” she snapped. “It’s nothing! I’m fine! Stop looking at me like that!”

 
; Queen Thorn and Winter politely took a step back and pretended to study the clouds. But Cricket couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away; she was giving Snowfall the most fascinated look through her glasses.

  “S-sorry, b-but your expression —” Cricket stammered. “Something about your face, for a moment when you were still unconscious — it was so weirdly familiar.”

  “She looked like Moon does when she has visions of the future,” Luna suggested. “Can you see the future, too? What did you see?”

  Snowfall shook her head, crouching a little lower to the grass. Her claw hurt from her violent attempts to pull off the ring, and her head still ached from being yanked out of Wasp, and she had a weird flippy feeling in her stomach that had no reasonable explanation, except maybe that turning from one dragon into another all of a sudden might have some physical side effects.

  Had she seen the future? Or was that the past? Or was it happening right now?

  “Maybe she’s just hungry,” Lynx said, trying to cover for Snowfall. “Dragons faint from hunger all the time, right?”

  “IceWings don’t have the power of foresight,” Winter said to Luna. “Only NightWings.”

  “But that looked like magic,” Qibli said. He glanced at Thorn, as if she had the eyes he trusted the most. “Didn’t it? Like something magic just happened to Queen Snowfall. Do you feel all right?” he asked her. He sounded genuinely concerned, his voice suddenly gentle instead of playful. Snowfall saw him reach up and instinctively touch his earring. She wondered if he was thinking of Darkstalker, and the plague, and what had happened to the last IceWing queen, and other unknown evil spells that might be lurking about.

  Was it possible the ring had been secretly spirited into the palace by Darkstalker? Could this be one of his curses that was doing this to her?

  In a panic, Snowfall fumbled for her pouch, pulled out the earring that had cured her of the Darkstalker plague, and stabbed it into her ear.

  Everyone was staring at her again as she grabbed the ring and tried to wrestle it off her claw.

  It didn’t budge. If it had been a Darkstalker spell, it should have lost all its power over her the moment she put on the earring. She should have been able to pull it off easily.

  With a sigh, she took the earring off and tucked it back in her pouch.

  “What is going on?” Sundew said into the silence.

  “Do you have magic besides seeing the future?” Luna asked, her gaze going from Snowfall to Lynx to Qibli and Thorn.

  “They do — like the invisible IceWing army! Remember I told you about that?” Cricket said. “I’ve been wondering about how she did that for days. It seems to be … jewelry-related?” She studied Snowfall’s bracelets and the ring that sat obstinately on her claw.

  Qibli gave her a surprised, approving look. He held out one talon to Snowfall. “May I see?”

  Snowfall wasn’t sure why she placed her talon in his, letting him bend down to peer at the opal ring. Maybe it was the smoky haze of Blue’s brain inside hers, wanting to trust everyone. Which was still better than the sharp teeth of Wasp’s brain that wanted her to bite him instead.

  Is that right? Am I being all Snowfall right now? Would Snowfall normally want to bite him, too? Are any of my feelings real?

  “Invisible army?” Winter murmured to Lynx. She tugged him a few steps away from the group and whispered in his ear.

  At the same time, Qibli was tapping on the opal and trying to wiggle the ring around Snowfall’s claw.

  “This isn’t an ordinary stuck ring, is it?” he said. “What’s the spell on it? Do you know who cast it?”

  Sundew drew in a sharp breath behind him. “Spell?” she echoed. “You can cast actual magic spells?”

  Part of Snowfall really REALLY wanted to tell these other-tribe dragons nothing. This was IceWing business! Nothing to do with anyone else!

  But there was Cricket, and her curious face that Blue loved so much, and Blue would never hide anything from her. And even the parts of Snowfall that weren’t all blurry from being Blue couldn’t help thinking, she should know that he’s still alive, or at least he was whenever that vision happened … is going to happen? Arrgh it would be HELPFUL to KNOW THINGS, you stupid ring.

  “It’s an old animus-touched object from way back in IceWing history,” she told Qibli. “I found it in our treasury. It gives me visions of other dragons, like I’m inside them, thinking their thoughts, feeling their feelings.” She scowled. “It’s THE WORST, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Wow,” Cricket breathed. “Blue would love that.”

  Snowfall rubbed her head. “The one I just had … I was Blue, actually.” She didn’t want to tell them the Wasp part. Maybe she could keep that to herself, and by keeping it to herself, forget it ever happened.

  Cricket and Luna stared at her with a whole new light in their eyes. “Blue?” Luna gasped, and “You saw him? He’s all right?” Cricket blurted at the same time.

  “I didn’t see him,” Snowfall explained snippily. “I was him. I was stuck inside him. He is the sappiest little butterfly of a dragon I have ever encountered.”

  “That’s Blue,” Luna said affectionately.

  Tears were running down Cricket’s face. “What was he doing? Is he safe?”

  “Not even remotely,” Snowfall said, and then “OW!” as Lynx kicked her tail and gave her a significant look. “I mean, he’s ALIVE. But that evil queen of yours is controlling his talons and he’s trapped with her army and they were just forced to round up a bunch of SilkWings in Cicada Hive, including his mothers, and he was feeling really guilty about that. WHAT?” she barked as Lynx kicked her tail again.

  “It’s all right,” Cricket said to Lynx, although her tears hadn’t stopped. “I want to know the truth.”

  “SEE?” Snowfall glowered at Lynx.

  “Have you had visions of other Pantalan dragons?” Sundew interrupted. “Any LeafWings?”

  “Yes. One named Bryony,” Snowfall said.

  Sundew’s eyes narrowed, but less like she was mad at Snowfall and more like she was trying not to have some other expression. “Was she … did Queen Wasp have her? And the other LeafWings with her?”

  “No, she’s in hiding,” Snowfall said. “With Hemlock and all the SilkWings from Bloodworm Hive.”

  “All the SilkWings from Bloodworm Hive?” Sundew echoed, confusion taking over her face.

  “Yes,” Snowfall snapped. “I know your plan was to leave them all to die with the HiveWings, but Bryony didn’t let that happen.”

  Sundew blinked, and it was Cricket who jumped in to defend her. “Sundew didn’t want them to burn the Hive at all,” she said. “And she’s the one who made sure they contacted the Chrysalis first.”

  “This is so weird,” Lynx said. “I mean, listening to you talk about all this Pantala stuff and those dragons over there as if you know them,” she added to Snowfall. As if you care about them, her puzzled eyebrows seemed to say.

  “It’s not great!” Snowfall lashed her tail. “It’s pretty aggravating, in fact! I have enough problems to handle in the Ice Kingdom! I don’t want to worry about problems on a whole other continent, too!”

  “Thank you for telling us, though,” Cricket said, wiping her eyes. “It means a lot.”

  “Who else?” Sundew demanded. “How long have you been having these visions without telling us?”

  Snowfall hissed at her. “Just since you came barging into my kingdom,” she said. “The other two times were SilkWings. In the first vision, I was Atala while she flew over the ocean with you all, but she’s here now and totally fine. The other is named Tau. She was trying to escape Jewel Hive before the HiveWings got there.”

  “Tau,” Cricket said softly. “Did she make it?”

  “I don’t know!” Snowfall threw her wings up in the air, scattering pine needles. “Wait, yes, I do, sort of, because Blue was thinking about how Wasp’s army found Jewel Hive empty. So I think she did, but I can’t be sure because I don’
t even know if I was seeing the past, present, or future! There’s no reason for any of this! And now they’re happening during the day?” She growled low in her throat. “I can’t be collapsing and getting infested with other dragons’ emotions in the middle of a council of queens. Let’s cut off my claw,” she said abruptly to Lynx.

  “That might be a bit drastic,” Qibli said, and she realized he was still holding her talon, studying the ring. “I mean, let’s make that plan B. Or, like, plan F.”

  “WHAT’S PLAN A?” Snowfall shouted at him.

  “Can you communicate with the dragons in your visions?” Qibli asked. “Like, to let them know where everyone has gone or that they should come across the ocean, too?”

  “No!” Snowfall cried. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR EARS? I’m not Snowfall when I’m inside them! Snowfall disappears! I have no way of telling them anything! I can’t even remember what Snowfall knows! It’s like I never existed at all!” She took a deep, shuddering breath.

  Queen Thorn nudged Qibli aside and took his place beside Snowfall. “The queen needs a moment,” Thorn said with authority. “Everyone who’s not me, go away.”

  “But —” Qibli and Sundew both started to protest at the same time.

  “Now,” Thorn said with a forbidding look.

  The other dragons melted away like magic. Real queen magic, Snowfall thought wistfully. The magic of saying things and being instantly obeyed. The magic of being so queenly that everyone listens to you. Because they trust you and know you’re a great queen.

  “Whewf,” Thorn said when they were gone, her voice suddenly, surprisingly normal. “Have you noticed that it’s awfully hard to get any peace and quiet when you’re queen?”

  Snowfall thought of her empty, echoing palace and the way dragons vanished when they saw her coming. The long, long nights that were too quiet, and yet not peaceful at all. But also the constant pressure inside her head, knowing the wall was always waiting for her and feeling as though dragons were watching her every move.

  I wonder if Tundra has changed any of the rankings while I’ve been gone. Narwhal used to, when Queen Glacier was away. Snowfall didn’t think she’d officially authorized that, but maybe Tundra would just assume that power because Snowfall hadn’t told her not to.