Moon Rising (14 page)

Queen Scarlet
shot through Starflight’s mind as he leaped over the desk.
She’s come for us.

“Find somewhere to hide,” he cried to Moon, Kinkajou, and Sora. He stumbled forward, talons outstretched. “Don’t let her see you.”
Which way to the Great Hall?
he thought frantically.
I have to get there. I have to protect them.

“Who?” Kinkajou yelped. “Who are we hiding from?”

Sora curled into a ball on the reeds, trembling. Horrible images were lurching up from the mud puddle in her brain: dragons on fire, dragons screaming, spears bristling, a little brown dragon bleeding from her neck as she plummeted to the ground.

Moon clutched her head. The images weren’t just coming from Sora; all over the school, dragonets who’d been in the war were hearing the alarm and having awful flashbacks. She could hardly think straight through all the violence reeling around in her head.

Raindrops,
she tried to think.

That won’t work here,
Darkstalker said.
Everyone is too panicked. Find the calmest voice and anchor yourself. Focus on it. It’ll help if it’s someone who knows what’s going on.

Moon closed her eyes and searched rapidly through the tumult around her. Her mind landed, unexpectedly, in Carnelian’s.

She won’t hurt me,
Carnelian was thinking, wary but unafraid.
I wonder if she remembers me.

So it’s not Queen Scarlet,
Moon realized.
Or Carnelian would be angrier than that.

Starflight was already hurrying away to the Great Hall, his wings brushing the rock walls on either side, his talons reaching forward anxiously.

Moon started after him.

“Aren’t we hiding?” Kinkajou asked.

“Is that what you want to do?” Moon asked.

“No!” Kinkajou said, flaring green and purple and white and yellow in dizzying spirals. “I thought that’s what
you
would want to do. But chasing after him to see what’s happening is MUCH more exciting!”
I love my clawmate!
she thought ecstatically, bounding along beside Moon.

They burst into the hall only a few moments behind Starflight.

A SkyWing stood in the center of the cave, staring wildly around her with eerie blue eyes. Smoke rose from her shimmering metallic-orange scales.

Most students had fled, but Winter and Icicle stood in one of the tunnel entrances, glaring at the SkyWing. Carnelian was there, too, watching curiously. Two other dragons had apparently fainted before they could run away, a SeaWing and a SandWing Moon didn’t know.

“Who’s there?” Starflight called, his voice shaking. Moon realized that he was trying to look brave, but that he was almost paralyzed with fear. His visions of the former SkyWing queen were intensely replaying over and over, most of them featuring Starflight bleeding in some kind of arena while she laughed.

But the dragon he was afraid of was not the dragon here in front of them. Moon didn’t know who this was, or anything about her. Trying to look into the newcomer’s mind was like touching an inferno. She couldn’t read a single thought in the blaze.

“That’s not Queen Scarlet,” Moon said, touching his shoulder.

“It’s not?” Starflight said. His wings collapsed with relief.

“Peril!” Clay shouted as he hurried into the cave, moving fast despite his limp. “You came!”

Oh, great,
Tsunami thought, coming in right behind him.

Peril instinctively shrank away from Clay, but the wall of flames in her mind cooled for a brief moment as she looked at him. Moon caught a stab of fierce, desperate love and guilt, and then the fire swallowed everything coherent again.

Clay didn’t seem to notice her pulling away; he took one of Peril’s talons and pressed it between his. A sizzling sound and burning smell rose from his scales where they touched, but when he let go, the burn healed over almost instantly.

“When we didn’t hear from you, we assumed you weren’t coming,” Tsunami said.

“I thought I could find her,” Peril said, tearing her gaze away from Clay. “But she’s nowhere. I don’t know where else to look. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Clay said wholeheartedly. “We’re glad you’re here.”

That’s only true for him,
Moon thought.
Not remotely for anyone else. Peril’s lucky
she
doesn’t have mind reading.
Almost every dragon who knew she was here was brimming with hostility, fear, fury, or, in most cases, all three.

“We don’t have a group for you,” Tsunami said, folding her wings back. “We didn’t know you were coming, so there’s a SkyWing in each winglet already.”

“I don’t have to stay,” Peril mumbled. She edged back a step, toward the outside.

“But I want you to,” Clay said. “If Scarlet’s looking for you, too, we’ll all be safer together. Don’t worry about the winglets, we’ll figure it out.” He shot Tsunami a frown.
Don’t scare her away. She deserves a second chance.

Tsunami rolled her eyes, but a memory of Peril saving Clay’s life kept her from saying the rest of the snappish things in her head. “I’ll go ask Sunny where we should put you,” she said instead, and swept away.

“She can’t stay here!” Winter suddenly barked, stepping forward. He jabbed a claw at Peril. “
That
dragon killed more than twenty IceWing prisoners. She was Queen Scarlet’s favorite weapon. It’s one thing to force us to work with deceitful NightWings and lowborn SandWings, but a straight-up murderer? No one is going to stand for this.”

“Besides, she’s dangerous,” his sister pointed out in a smooth, high-pitched voice. “Whether she’s still working for Queen Scarlet or … not.” The tone of her voice made it perfectly clear which of those she believed.

“A lot of dragons have done things they need to be forgiven for,” Clay pointed out. Just around the corner, Moon felt Tsunami hear him, pause, and wince. “Especially in the war. The agreement between the queens was amnesty for everyone, no grudges, no revenge.”

Easy for him to say,
Winter thought bitterly, and the IceWing from the mountains shot through his head again, this time along with the word
brother.
“Fighting in battles, following orders from your general, that’s normal warfare,” he said. “Killing prisoners while they’re chained up, or forcing them to fight a monster — how is that forgivable?”

Peril seemed to be shrinking and burning hotter at the same time. Her weird eyes glowered at Winter through the smoke.

“Even Queen Ruby hasn’t agreed to pardon that dragon,” Icicle pointed out. “She’s been banned from the SkyWing palace, hasn’t she?”

“All the more reason to welcome her here,” Clay said. “Where starting over and second chances are the whole point.” He smiled at Peril again. She lashed her tail and ducked her head. “Come on, let’s go see the others,” Clay added diplomatically, waving Peril toward the tunnel where Tsunami had disappeared.

Icicle turned to Winter as they left and hissed, “I’ll send a messenger to Queen Glacier tonight.”

The gong sounded twice, echoing through the tunnels.

“Time for history,” Kinkajou said cheerfully. “Come on, Winter!”

Icicle gave him an amused, arch look.
How adorable, a RainWing with a crush on my brother.

Winter shifted his wings uncomfortably and started after Kinkajou.
She thinks it’s funny, but if she knew what I’ve been feeling — who I’ve been thinking about …
He slammed a wall of ice down over his thoughts, almost hard enough for Moon to feel the vibrations in her own skull.

The history lesson cave was far down inside the mountain, at the intersection of three winding, narrow tunnels. There were fewer of the fire globes along these tunnels; the ones here were shades of orange and blue, and they were interspersed with flickering torches. Moon noticed that Kinkajou edged quickly past the open flames; the RainWing also didn’t love the claustrophobic closeness of the walls or how much darker it was this far down.

Inside, the history cave’s stone walls were covered in maps, the paper curling up at the edges, with different borders and years written on each one. Stacks of scrolls were piled untidily everywhere, overflowing the wooden racks provided for them.

Webs stood in the center of the cave, waiting for everyone to gather in a circle around him. Moon sensed that he was the one who’d chosen the space, and that he preferred the dimmer, more underground feeling. He was the SeaWing who’d brought the fish in the net, and he was a lot older than the prophecy dragonets. Trails of regret ran underneath all his thoughts, even when he was mostly focused on the lesson he was about to give. Moon wondered why he was here and how he’d gotten the scar on his side.

Moon’s winglet filed in, and so did Sora’s. As each dragon entered, Moon slipped their minds into the background rainstorm noise, and she felt her wings relax. Even in a cave filled with fifteen dragons, she could be all right. Her head didn’t hurt, and she didn’t feel overwhelmed or confused. She could think her own thoughts … thanks to Darkstalker.

Moon noticed that Icicle and Sora sat on opposite ends of the cave and didn’t speak to each other. The other NightWing was the male uninspiringly named Bigtail, the one Pike had growled at; now she realized they were clawmates. She guessed that would be an uncomfortable cave to sleep in tonight. Bigtail glanced at Moon and then quickly away, as if he didn’t want to be associated with her. Pike slid past him, glowering, and nearly flicked Bigtail’s nose with one of his wings.

She was surprised to see that Carnelian didn’t acknowledge the other SkyWing. He had a horrible scar across his snout, as if he’d been in battle, like her. She hesitated for a moment, then let go of that raindrop for a moment to check Carnelian’s mind.

Flame,
she heard Carnelian scoff, shooting him a glare.
Talons of Peace.

Oh, that explained it; he’d hidden with the underground peace movement instead of fighting in the war. Moon wondered where he’d gotten that scar, then, but even brushing the surface of his mind gave her a queasy feeling of overflowing rage, so she decided to stay out of it instead.

Kinkajou spotted a small blue-and-gold RainWing and dragged Moon over to her, excited sparks going off in her mind.

“Moon, this is Tamarin. Tamarin, Moon is our new best friend. She’s super funny. Moon, can Tamarin touch your face?”

I’m super funny?
Moon thought.
In what universe?

“It’s all right, I don’t have to,” Tamarin said, smiling. Moon saw the pale film across Tamarin’s eyes and remembered that the RainWing was blind.

“You can.” Moon let her talons touch Tamarin’s, and the RainWing brushed her claws gently across Moon’s scales, horns, and snout. Moon got a shivering glimpse of a world without sight, of Tamarin’s quiet competence and immense concentration.

“Have you figured everything out yet?” Kinkajou asked Tamarin. “She had the rainforest all memorized, but of course this is a whole new place,” she added to Moon. “So Queen Glory arranged for her to come early and spend a few days walking all the tunnels. I bet you know Jade Mountain better than anyone now.”

“Ha,” Tamarin said. “Well, I’m getting used to it. It’s useful to have walls, in a way.”

“I can’t wait for suntime, though,” Kinkajou said. “Moon, after this we’re going to go sleep in the sun for the rest of the day. Want to join us?”

“Uh — no, thanks,” Moon said. She’d seen RainWings doing that before, but it still seemed odd to her.

“Everyone sit!” Webs ordered.

A muscular SandWing a lot older than the others darted into the cave and sat down next to Tamarin. “Hey,” she whispered. “Did I miss anything?”

“This is my clawmate Onyx,” Tamarin said.

Onyx had very black eyes and little black diamonds embedded between her pale yellow scales all along her wings. She wore a metal amulet around her neck and branching black lines were tattooed on her horns and neck. Her gaze was sharp, studying the others in the cave, and her mind was like shifting sand. Moon tipped her head and realized that Onyx was as hard to read as Turtle. Nothing came from her mind but that same weird quiet fuzz.

How is she doing that? Darkstalker? Can you read Onyx and Turtle? Am I just not powerful enough?

A pause, and then,
No. They are both impenetrable to me as well.

Really? Are they just really good at shielding?

I’m not sure. I’ve never seen mental shielding advanced enough to block me, and who would have trained them? But perhaps my powers have grown weaker over time. Or perhaps this kind of shielding evolved over the last two thousand years.

Moon studied Onyx, then glanced across the cave at Turtle. The two dragons had nothing in common that she could see. How could they both be the only dragons immune to mind reading?

“Some of you might know who I am,” Webs said, clearing his throat importantly. “For those of you who don’t, my name is Webs, and I used to be part of the Talons of Peace. You may have heard of my son, Riptide, who is the new leader of whatever the Talons of Peace is becoming. I was one of the guardians who raised the dragonets of destiny. I taught them the history of Pyrrhia, and now they’ve asked me to teach it to you. So, we’ll start at the beginning, with the Scorching.”