“No,” Morrowseer said, plucking a feather off his tongue. “Dead. Died a few years ago.”
“Oh.” Starflight didn’t understand the wave of sadness that seemed to punch him in the chest. He hadn’t known her. She’d agreed to give up her egg for the prophecy, so she couldn’t have been very attached to him. She was probably as bad as Coral, or Clay’s mother.
Still.
“How did she die?” Starflight tried not to look at the mess Morrowseer was making of the albatross. Dune and Kestrel had always insisted on strict table manners and cleanliness, since they were all trapped under the mountain together, in just a few caves with nowhere to escape to if someone ate their prey in a loud, annoying way.
“She got herself involved in a battle — tried to help a SeaWing who’d been attacked by two SkyWings.” Morrowseer grunted. “Idiot. So obviously you didn’t get that brain from her.” He narrowed his eyes at Starflight and waved one of the bird bones at him. “Enough. I have questions for you.”
“I really don’t know anything,” Starflight said in a hurry.
“How dangerous is that RainWing?” Morrowseer asked, ignoring him. “Our studies indicate that most RainWings care only about themselves and prefer everything to be easy. Accurate?”
Starflight nodded. He really desperately didn’t want to betray Glory in any way. But he couldn’t think of a way to avoid Morrowseer’s questions or lie to him when Morrowseer was sure to read the truth in his mind.
To his surprise, Morrowseer’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “So perhaps they won’t do anything. Perhaps they’ll roll over and go back to sleep.”
Starflight realized that Morrowseer had misunderstood him — he’d only meant that laziness was true of most RainWings, but the NightWing had heard that it was true of Glory as well.
“Maybe,” he said noncommittally. He tried not to think about how Glory would never let this go — how she would fight tooth and claw to rescue the RainWing prisoners. It had been strange seeing her like that, as if she’d borrowed Tsunami’s ferocity for a day. For years Glory had acted as though she didn’t care about anything. But apparently imprisoning and torturing members of her tribe was one way to get her attention.
He remembered what the council had said. “What plan was the council talking about?” he asked. “What is it we don’t want the RainWings to know?”
He stumbled over the words, trying to say “we” as if he could be part of this tribe. But he wanted Morrowseer to feel as if Starflight was on his side, that he could be trusted. It was a trick he’d seen Sunny use a few times when Glory and Tsunami were fighting — “Why are we mad at Tsunami today?” “Now what has Glory done to us?” — and it often worked.
Not this time, though.
“The less you know, the better,” Morrowseer snapped. “You’ll get in less trouble that way.”
That wasn’t generally Starflight’s philosophy. He’d say knowing more was always better than knowing less.
Morrowseer ripped the last chunk of flesh off the bird and spat out several more feathers. “If you’re determined to starve,” he muttered, and devoured the wing he’d thrown to Starflight in a few bites. “Very well,” he grumbled, “let’s go see Mastermind.” He flung the remains of the bird into the bushes and jumped into the sky. “Then I’ll take you to the alternates,” he said over his shoulder.
“The what?” Starflight asked, but Morrowseer was winging away quickly and didn’t look back.
Starflight followed him, still thinking about the way NightWings hunted. It explained a few things, including the bad breath on all the dragonets in the dormitory. Oddly, Deathbringer didn’t seem to have the same smell. Starflight wondered if the assassin spent more time on the continent than other NightWings and had learned to prefer live prey over carrion, like most dragons.
Ahead of them, the NightWing fortress loomed, black against the gray sky. It was massive, built in layers that wrapped halfway around the mountain. But it also looked somehow precarious, as if one rock shelf could shift underneath it and the whole thing might suddenly slide all the way into the ocean.
In fact … Starflight squinted. It was hard to see at first, black on black in the dark smoky air, but as they got closer he was sure. Part of the fortress had been swallowed by lava, clearly some time ago. A whole corner of the building, at least as big as Queen Scarlet’s gladiator arena, was covered by a hardened mass of black rock bubbles. It looked like a giant dragon had reached out of the mountain and slammed its talons down over the walls.