Darkness of Dragons Read online

  “We can see with our eyes what kind of dragon Darkstalker is,” Winter said scornfully. “I trust my own judgment better than any old history scroll.”

  “Says the dragon whose sister turned out to be a murderer,” Sepia suddenly interjected.

  Winter leaped to his feet and whirled toward her, his teeth bared. Qibli darted in between them, wings outstretched, ready to hold Winter back or help him fight, whichever turned out to be necessary.

  “It was a MudWing who blew up the other cave, not my sister!” Winter flared.

  “But she did it because of what your sister did,” Sepia said stoutly.

  “Winter, let’s be fair,” Qibli pointed out. “We just stopped Icicle from trying to murder Starflight and then Glory, so technically … ”

  “You’re not helping, Qibli!” Winter growled at him.

  “Now now now now now.” Webs fretted, flapping his wings. “The war is behind us. That’s the whole point of this place. No fighting allowed!”

  Behind him, Qibli saw Sunny poke her head into the classroom. She scanned the dragonets and frowned slightly, then disappeared again.

  That was worrying.

  “All right, all right, we can talk about Darkstalker,” Webs said. “If you’ll all sit down and shut up, I’ll tell you what I know about him.” He rolled up the scroll on his desk, muttering something like, “and I thought Tsunami was bad.”

  Winter subsided back into his seat, looking baleful.

  “Darkstalker is the son of a NightWing named Foeslayer and an IceWing prince named Arctic,” Webs rattled off. “He lived over two thousand years ago in the ancient NightWing kingdom, and he was the first animus dragon to hatch in the NightWing tribe — a gift he inherited from his father. But he rapidly became too dangerous to control, and he was plotting to assassinate the queen and steal her power when his friends Fathom and Clearsight conspired to stop him, stuffing him under a mountain and putting him to sleep forever.”

  “Clearly not forever,” Changbai interrupted.

  “Right,” said Webs, a little flustered. “Until now. But he has emerged a changed dragon, humbled and unambitious, who only wants to use his powers for good. So, nothing to worry about; can we get back to our actual lesson?”

  “Um,” said Qibli, “wait. How exactly do we know he’s humbled and unambitious now?”

  “Because it’s obvious,” Winter said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like he immediately demanded to be made king of the NightWings or anything.”

  With impeccable comic timing, the slate in Qibli’s pouch gave a little jump. He waited until no one was looking at him anymore, then pulled it out and hid it under his desk. He could see a message from Turtle appearing on the surface, agonizingly slowly.

  DARKSTALKER WANTS TO BE NIGHTWING KING. NIGHTWINGS DECIDING WHAT THEY WANT.

  Qibli nearly laughed, but he didn’t want to draw attention to the slate.

  And also, it was too terrifying to be funny.

  Tell me more, Turtle, he pleaded silently. What’s happening? How are the NightWings reacting? What about Glory? And Moon … does Moon want him to be king? Is she still acting like herself?

  But nothing else appeared on the slate, and after a few minutes, Qibli had to accept that was Turtle’s entire message. He sighed.

  Darkstalker as king. I can see the logic. It’s a choice between two difficult, unusual alternatives: to have a king or to be ruled by a RainWing. He knew several of the NightWings intensely disliked the idea of being ruled by Queen Glory. He’d seen it on their faces in the rainforest, even before Moon confirmed that she’d heard such grumblings in their minds.

  No matter what Glory did, how hard she worked, how intelligently she solved their problems, or how fairly and kindly she treated them, some NightWings would never accept her, simply because she was a RainWing.

  But what kind of king would Darkstalker be? Would he be content with ruling his tribe? Did his ambitions stop there?

  Qibli would have liked to believe they did, but the last words of Moon’s prophecy kept repeating on a loop in his head.

  Something is coming to shake the earth. (That was definitely Darkstalker, rising from his prison.)

  Something is coming to scorch the ground. (He was pretty sure this was Darkstalker, too.)

  Jade Mountain will fall beneath thunder and ice. (Why? When? How soon?)

  Unless the lost city of night can be found.

  He brooded on that last line for a moment. Darkstalker knew where the lost city was. Was there something there that could stop him? Something Fathom and Clearsight left behind, perhaps, in case their old friend/enemy ever emerged? That’s what Qibli would have done if he were them — left some kind of backup plan. But how would anyone know what it was, or how to use it?

  Sunny appeared in the doorway again. “Webs,” she whispered. “I need to borrow Qibli.”

  Webs flicked his tail impatiently and Qibli leaped to his feet, just barely managing to keep the joy off his face.

  “Thank you,” he whispered to Sunny as he bounded out into the hallway. “Can you do that every time I have history? I mean, didn’t you go through this exact same suffering when you were younger? How can you inflict it on other innocent souls?”

  “Lessons with Webs were awesome,” Sunny said sternly — or, at least, Qibli guessed that was her attempt at a stern face. “You be grateful you don’t have to do battle training with Kestrel.” Her expression shifted, worry lines creeping across her forehead. “Qibli — have you seen Ostrich today?”

  “No,” he said, instantly alert. “I haven’t seen her since I got back to Jade Mountain.”

  “I had breakfast with her yesterday morning,” Sunny said. “But when everything happened with my father and Flame — I forgot to check on her last night, and then today I haven’t been able to find her anywhere.”

  Qibli’s heart sank as Sunny rubbed her temples anxiously.

  “I’m terribly afraid,” she said, “that Ostrich is missing.”

  Qibli helped Sunny search the entire mountain again. He studied the whole map in his mind, everything that was part of the school and everything that wasn’t, all the corners where a small dragonet might hide or get lost or get stuck. He checked her favorite places — the music room, the library — and her least favorite places — the underground lakes, the slopes below Stonemover’s cave that were littered with prey bones.

  He even poked his head into Stonemover’s cave itself, where he saw Flame trapped by the shackles Darkstalker had made, furiously struggling to get loose. Qibli had heard the story from Turtle, but he was still startled by Flame’s smooth, perfectly healed snout, and by the flashing hatred in Flame’s eyes. Against the wall, Stonemover was lying with his head averted and eyes closed. Qibli couldn’t help thinking that trapping Flame in the same cave as the dragon he’d tried to murder was a worse punishment for the victim than it was for the attempted murderer.

  But he didn’t linger to dwell on that problem; he had to find Ostrich. Her parents, Six-Claws and Kindle, trusted Qibli. Queen Thorn trusted him — she’d basically told him that the SandWings at the academy were his responsibility. And then he’d flown off and abandoned them! True, he’d been on a quest to help Moon and Winter, and of course he’d expected the students to be safe with Sunny. But still, he hadn’t even stopped to worry about them at all.

  Have I been thinking about Moon — about my new friends — too much, and not enough about Thorn and the rest of my tribe?

  He’d beaten himself into a state of surging guilt by the time he met Sunny again, back at the cave where Ostrich and Anemone had been assigned to live together. It was hard to tell the young SandWing had ever been here. Like most dragons raised with the Outclaws, she was used to living sparely and compactly, in case they had to relocate suddenly or face a sandstorm or fend off a street gang invasion.

  The SeaWing princess, on the other talon, clearly lived a very different life. The cave was covered in her mess, from piles of damp blanke
ts to trails of wet moss to little fish bones scattered around, but more than all of that, there were the jewels and trinkets and treasures. Qibli guessed there was more wealth scattered casually around this cave than he’d ever personally have in his entire life.

  He could see why it wouldn’t make sense to take it all with her to the rainforest — but couldn’t she have at least put it away in one of her giant wooden chests? Or found a better place to hide it all?

  The glittering pink-and-gold tiara sticking out from under one of the blankets — that was just begging to be stolen. A single one of those black pearl cluster earrings would fetch a price that could feed ten orphans for a month — and Anemone would probably just assume she’d lost it and not even care.

  Dragons who treated treasure like this didn’t deserve treasure like this.

  Qibli sat down and wrapped his wings around himself, fighting back all his Outclaw instincts. He was very glad Moon wasn’t there to read his mind and discover all the unworthy thoughts he was having.

  Thorn had given her Outclaws strict instructions once she became queen. “We’re not outside the law anymore,” she’d said. “We are the law. Which means it’s up to us to show how fair and just and righteous those in power can be. We won’t be like the regimes that came before us. I know it’ll be hard, but from now on, no more stealing, no more cheating, no more striking first or solving problems with our claws and venom. We all have to be better dragons now.”

  Argh, but wouldn’t a good dragon take just one emerald necklace if it could pay for a real library for the Scorpion Den orphanages?

  No no no.Qibli closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Winter wouldn’t have this problem. He wouldn’t even be tempted by any of this. That’s why he deserves Moon and I don’t.

  “Three moons, what a disaster,” Sunny said, stepping around him and surveying the room critically. “It looks like Princess Anemone hasn’t quite gotten used to living without servants yet.”

  “The good news is, she hasn’t managed to make Ostrich do her cleaning up for her,” Qibli pointed out. He grinned. “It would be funny to see her try, though.” Ostrich was one of the kinder, gentler souls among the Outclaws, but she had a streak of ferocity from her father and an iron core from her mother that made her impossible to push around. Qibli knew she would never bow to any royal — except Queen Thorn, of course.

  They circled the room, looking for any clues that might hint at Ostrich’s whereabouts. Her small corner of the room held almost nothing personal, other than a small sketch of her parents that was pinned to the wall beside her hammock.

  Qibli was studying Six-Claws’s face when he felt the slate twitch lightly again. He tugged it quickly out of the pouch and watched the new message appear.

  THE NIGHTWINGS ARE GETTING A KING, Turtle wrote.

  Qibli stared at the slate.

  And stared at it some more.

  But nothing else appeared.

  Turtle!He growled softly. Is that seriously all the information you think is worth reporting? WHAT HAPPENED?

  The slate stared placidly and blankly back at him.

  What about Queen Glory? What about Moon? Are they all going to live in the rainforest together? Has he killed anyone or done anything dangerous or suspicious? Or is this the most peaceful transfer of power in Pyrrhian history? What’s going on with the superpowers Darkstalker was handing out yesterday? Are you safe? How does Moon feel about this new king?

  TURTLE, TELL ME ANYTHING.

  “What’s that?” Sunny interrupted his careening thoughts, coming up behind him and looking curiously at the little object in his talons.

  “Nothing,” he answered, tucking the obstinately uninformative slate back in his pouch. He wished he could tell Sunny the news about Darkstalker, but then he’d have to reveal Turtle’s animus magic, which seemed not only unfair, but rather unsafe.

  He had to focus on Ostrich. That was the only thing he could do anything about right now.

  His gaze fell on a pair of rippling, beaten copper armbands, tossed carelessly on a pile of half-rolled scrolls.

  “Aren’t those the armbands Anemone enchanted to control the weather?” he asked Sunny.

  She frowned slightly. “I think so.”

  I can’t believe she just left them here. Such powerful magic, lying around abandoned? Anyone could get their claws on those and do all kinds of damage.

  “Maybe you should take them,” he suggested to Sunny. “So no one else does.”

  “I feel guilty about it, but I think you’re right,” she said. With a sigh, she gathered the armbands and slid them into her bag. Qibli watched them disappear with a small sting of envy.

  Last night, he’d asked Turtle to make him an animus dragon. He’d taken his most secret wish and laid it at Turtle’s feet, and then Turtle had stomped on it. Qibli understood why — another animus in the world meant more threats to the animus dragons who existed — but it still made him ache to think how close he was to all that power, and yet he would never have it. Instead he’d have to watch other dragons, like Turtle and Anemone, use their power on frivolous things they didn’t even care about — weather-controlling wristbands and slates that only communicated in one direction — and he’d never get to do all the good he could have done with that power in his own talons.

  With animus magic, I could find Ostrich easily.

  “Let’s ask the other SandWings when they last saw Ostrich,” he suggested. And then, for the first time, he realized that Onyx — Tamarin’s clawmate — should have been in history class as well.

  But she hadn’t been.

  I’m such an idiot. How could I miss that?

  “Where is the Gold Winglet supposed to be right now?” he asked Sunny.

  “Herbs and Healing, with the Copper Winglet, I think,” she said.

  “Herbs and Healing?” he echoed, following her as she set off through the tunnels. “I don’t think we ever had that class.”

  “We just added it a few days ago,” Sunny said. “A couple of students asked for something like it — Tamarin and Peregrine especially.”

  Peregrine, Qibli thought, flicking through the information in his head. SkyWing, Copper Winglet, clawmates with Pronghorn. He’s the one who’s deaf in one ear, from an explosion near his home during the war. Queen Ruby has devoted a lot of energy to taking care of those wounded in the war … I bet Peregrine is hoping to become a doctor so he can help.

  The class was gathered in the healing center, watching Clay as he laid out bandages. A large blue-and-red drawing of a dragon was pinned to the wall behind him, illustrating where all the muscles were.

  “Which muscle did you get all venomed and burned?” asked Pronghorn, poking at the drawing.

  “This one here,” Clay said, pointing to the drawing and then to the scar on his right thigh. “That’s why I limp, because it was damaged where all these parts connect. But remember Peril saved my life by burning me here. Otherwise the venom would have spread and killed me pretty quickly.” He traced his claw along the paths the viper venom would have gone throughout the figure in the drawing.

  “Oooooooooooooo,” said a few of the dragonets.

  Qibli studied the group of students. Onyx was not here either; the only members of the Gold Winglet in the class were Tamarin and Pike.

  “Clay, can we borrow Pronghorn and Tamarin?” Sunny asked.

  “Of course,” Clay said, smiling down at her.

  Qibli offered his wing to Tamarin, but she shook her head and found her own way into the hall. Pronghorn stood beside her, bouncing eagerly on his toes as he looked from Qibli to Sunny.

  Pronghorn’s family had been on Blaze’s side during the war, hiding with her in a fortress in the cold tundra near the Ice Kingdom. So Qibli didn’t know him all that well, but he liked Pronghorn’s energy. Queen Thorn had chosen him for the academy because he’d sent her eight letters begging to be included, expressing his curiosity about the other tribes, and listing all the things he was excited to
learn about.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Can I help with something?”

  “We’re looking for Ostrich and Onyx,” Qibli told him. “Have you seen them in the last couple of days?”

  Pronghorn wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. “The last time I saw Ostrich was yesterday before lunch — she and Arid and I took some instruments to one of the upper caves to play with the sound of rain in the background. We invited Onyx, but she doesn’t really like music.”

  “Doesn’t like music!” Qibli echoed, startled. “Is she missing a soul? What else does she dislike — sunshine?”

  “Me,” Tamarin offered. “And most other dragons.”

  “Really?” Sunny said anxiously. “Oh, no, I had no idea. Is she hard to live with? Is she mean to you?”

  “No, she’s always nice to my face,” said Tamarin. In the rose and purple lights of the hallway, it was hard to tell what color her scales were. “Most dragons don’t realize how much I can figure out from their tone of voice, or the little huffs they make between sentences. She thinks because I can’t see her, I won’t be able to tell when she’s rolling her eyes or making fun of someone. Sometimes she’ll sneak in and out of our cave, because she doesn’t want to have to talk to me, and she thinks I don’t notice.” She shrugged. “It’s not personal, though. I think she doesn’t particularly care about any dragons unless they can help her get what she wants.”

  “What does she want?” Qibli asked.

  Tamarin shrugged again. “I don’t know. But maybe she’s gone to get it, because she didn’t come back to our cave last night.”

  Qibli and Sunny both pricked up their ears. “She didn’t?” Sunny asked.

  “Whoa. Do you think Ostrich and Onyx left together?” Pronghorn asked. “Maybe to go back to the Kingdom of Sand?”

  “Ostrich wouldn’t leave without telling someone,” Qibli said. “She wouldn’t leave without telling me.”

  “Unless she was forced to …” Sunny said, trailing off. She twisted her front talons together, looking ill.

  “You think someone took them?” Pronghorn asked keenly. “But why would someone kidnap Onyx and Ostrich?”