“Small things, for the most part,” Oasis growled. “But they also took the Eye of Onyx.”
That actually made Blister’s face twitch, as if a hint of a real emotion — worry? surprise? — was trying to come through.
“We’ll get it back,” Oasis promised. “And we’ll have roasted scavenger for breakfast.” She pushed past Blister and stormed toward the nearest route to the sky. “I’m going out there. Wake Burn, and hurry.”
“Oh, yes. Right away,” Blister said.
As Oasis charged into the courtyard, spread her wings, and lifted into the sky, she thought for a moment that she saw Blister turn to look back at the treasure rooms instead. I forgot to lock them up again, Oasis thought uneasily. But this will only take a minute. And if she’s stupid enough to take anything, I’ll have a good excuse to kill her. She’s smarter than that.
She wheeled toward the outer walls, scanning the sands. A disturbing thought occurred to her: What if she doesn’t wake Burn? What if I’m going to face the thieves alone, with no backup?
Then she spotted them. Three scavengers — two of them waiting on the sand, the other climbing down from a window. None of them watching the sky. Scab-infested idiot monkeys. Oasis growled and folded her wings to drop down silently behind them. Maybe she could scare them to death; prey always tasted better when it died like that.
Only three of them, she thought. I don’t need to wait for Burn, if Blister’s even getting her. I can certainly handle three annoying scavengers by myself.
She narrowed her eyes, advancing up the dunes toward the sound of squeaking.
After all … what’s the worst that could happen?
Sunny had always known that she was the right dragon for a Big Heroic Destiny.
She was going to save the world. She and her friends were going to swoop in on wings of fire, whatever that meant, and bring peace to every dragon in Pyrrhia. It was right there in the prophecy: five dragons born to end the fight. That was her fate. That was her purpose.
Besides, it explained everything. Why else was she so small and weird-looking? She wasn’t a normal SandWing. Her scales and eyes were the wrong color, and she had no venomous barb at the end of her tail. But that didn’t matter; in fact, it made sense. Of course a dragon hero with an epic noble quest would be a little different from everyone else. And who would care how strange she looked once she stopped the war?
Then there were her parents, the mysterious dragons who had left her egg buried in the sand in the desert, alone and unguarded. It didn’t matter that they obviously didn’t want her. It didn’t bother Sunny at all, because it was part of the prophecy: Hidden alone from the rival queens, the SandWing egg awaits unseen. That was all right; heroes in the scrolls often had no parents. Their heroic destiny was more important than any family.
And her destiny was important. There was nothing more important than stopping the war between the dragon tribes. All her life, especially whenever she felt trapped or sad or worried about anything, Sunny had imagined fulfilling the prophecy — how many lives they would save and all the happy, reunited families and all the future dragonets who could grow up in peace, without the constant fear of war.
That was the entire point of her life.
And it was a lie.
Rock walls scraped against her wings as she scrambled away from the NightWing island. She could feel the rumbles of the volcano all the way through her claws. Her friends were behind her, still facing Morrowseer, but she had to get away from them, from him, from everything.
He made up the prophecy. It was all a trick.
No. I don’t believe it. He’s a vindictive, cruel dragon who’s always manipulated us and everyone around him. He would say anything to hurt us.
The prophecy is real. It has to be.
She burst out of the tunnel into the rainforest and immediately slammed into the side of a skinny black dragon. The NightWing grunted with surprise and glared at her. Sunny tried to turn and fly the other way, but a floundering wall of black wings and talons and tails drove her back.
In the moonlight, the entire rainforest seemed to be seething with dragons. Roars and hisses and growls drowned out the sound of the raindrops pattering on the leaves all around them. It didn’t help that half of the dragons were dark as the shadows and the other half were camouflaged, so claws and corners of wings seemed to suddenly poke out of nowhere. Sunny narrowly avoided a tail in her ear when two NightWings got caught in a dangling vine and whipped around violently as if they were being attacked.
“Everyone calm down!” Glory’s voice shouted.
“Listen!” bellowed Grandeur, the old royal RainWing. “Your new queen is speaking!”