“Here,” one of the dragons said after a while, and they all stopped. Even with Sunny’s sharp hearing, the dragons roaring behind them sounded like distant thunder muttering on the horizon. Rain poured down harder and harder, and the ever-present insect noises of the rainforest had gone into hiding.
Sunny was dumped onto the ground, mud squishing between her claws and splattering her tail. She sprang up and hissed at the dragon who’d been carrying her. He barely glanced down at her before turning to the other two.
“Now what?” he demanded. “The whole plan is ruined. I’m not staying here to kowtow to a RainWing dragonet.”
“Me neither,” said one of the others, a female who was little more than a dragonet herself. Sunny guessed she was about nine years old. She was bedraggled, wet, bony, and hunched over, and yet when she snorted a burst of flame, Sunny could see her eyes gleaming with stubborn ferocity.
“Plus they’ll probably kill me,” said the big dragon. “You saw how they were about Mastermind. If they remember that I was his assistant … I mean, I was the one who locked them up or stuck them to the walls for him. They’ll be after my blood if we stick around here.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” hissed the last dragon, another male, much less brawny than the one who’d been carrying Sunny. He had a few missing teeth and his tail was bent at the end, as if it had once been broken and then fixed incorrectly. “We were promised the rainforest. This is where I want to live, but not as second-class dragons. Imagine, RainWings telling us what to do!”
“Well, we’ve got her, like you suggested,” the big male said to the dragonet, flipping one wing toward Sunny. “So what do we do with her?”
The NightWing dragonet lashed her tail and narrowed her eyes at Sunny. “We use her as a bargaining chip. We can hold her hostage until they take our whole tribe to the RainWing village and make one of us queen.”
“Like who?” said the other male. He spat a small flame at the branch that was dripping on his head. “Greatness is weak and won’t fight for it. Queen Battlewinner had no brothers or sisters and no other daughters. There’s no one else to claim the throne.”
“I’ll take it,” said the dragonet. “That’d be even better than being in the prophecy. If that RainWing can be queen, why not me? I’m bigger than her.”
“True,” growled the big one behind Sunny.
“Well, I have bad news,” Sunny spoke up. “They won’t give you anything in exchange for me. I’m nobody. Just a weird-looking SandWing with a useless tail.” She snapped her mouth shut before her voice could start wavering. She’d been saying things like that her whole life, but she’d never felt awful about it until today. If there were no prophecy … then that meant she really was just weird-looking and useless.
No, that’s not how it works. I’m weird-looking because I have a destiny. There’s a reason I’m like this. There has to be.
The NightWings regarded her with skeptical expressions.
“That would be annoying,” said the big one. “I’d be pretty angry if I carried this little thing through the forest and got my scales scratched up for no reason. Fierceteeth, I thought you said she’d be worth something.”
Fierceteeth! Sunny remembered what Starflight had told them about the dragonets in the NightWing kingdom. Wasn’t Fierceteeth his half sister?
“We can use her if she’s who I think she is,” said Fierceteeth. She jabbed Sunny painfully in the ribs. “Aren’t you Sunny? Starflight yapped on and on about a Sunny whenever he was asleep.”
Sunny blinked at her, too startled to answer.
“Yeah, this is her,” Fierceteeth said, answering her own question. “My brother’s totally in love with her. He’ll agree to anything to get her back.”
That might actually be true, Sunny thought with alarm. Does he really talk about me in his sleep? Only a few hours had passed since she’d stood in the rainforest clearing, in the middle of dragons preparing to invade the NightWing island, and Starflight had told her he loved her — that he’d always loved her.
She still didn’t know how she felt about that. She didn’t know what this feeling was, the strange ripples of surprise every time she remembered his expression. It was I don’t know what to do and somebody loves me and don’t hurt him and really, right now? and imagine how happy you could make him and why me? really, me? and but it’s Starflight. Her sweet, smart, anxious friend. She’d never thought of him like that, not once.
It was still hard for her to believe that he meant it. None of the other dragonets took her seriously. She’d always assumed he was the same way — that he thought she was too little and cheerful to be worth listening to.
Focus. Don’t let them use you to hurt your friends.
“Didn’t you see Starflight’s injuries?” she said. “He’s too wounded to have any say in what happens next. And Glory couldn’t care less about me. Face it, you can’t use me. You should go back and rejoin the other NightWings.”
“Nice try,” Fierceteeth said.