“He will wake up, right?” she finally said quietly.
“I think so.” A new spiral of mud-colored smoke wound its way up from the mirror, and Sunny felt her heart jump hopefully at the sound of Clay’s voice. He always made her feel better — even from the other side of the rainforest. “But he was burned pretty badly. We should use the darts to make him keep sleeping until he’s healed as much as possible, I think. It’ll hurt a lot when he wakes up.”
Oh, poor Starflight. Sunny curled her tail around her talons.
“And his eyes?” Glory asked. “Will they be all right?”
“I don’t know,” Clay said.
“All right, I did a perimeter sweep,” Tsunami’s voice said bossily as a blue twist of smoke appeared on the mirror. “I made sure any gaps were filled with RainWings holding spears and blowguns, and I added a few more guards on the tunnels. I don’t think they look very scary, but hopefully the NightWings will.” The blue smoke whisked around the other two tendrils as if Tsunami was circling them to land.
“That’s why I need you two here,” Glory said. “The healers who took Starflight back to the village can look after him until we get there. But for corralling NightWings, you’re the most intimidating dragons I have.”
“Mwa ha!” Clay said. “That’s me! Intimidating! Roar!”
“Well, you are until you do that,” Tsunami said.
“Hey, at least you’re not bright pink,” Glory said. “That’s extremely helpful right now.”
“It’s all right,” Clay said. “Sunny’s probably at the village already. She’ll look after Starflight, no matter how upset she is.”
Sunny winced and Fierceteeth gave her a sharp look.
“Why is she upset?” Glory asked.
“That slime lizard Morrowseer,” Tsunami answered. “He told us that the prophecy is fake. He made it all up as part of the plan for the NightWings to take over the rainforest.”
There was a long pause. The three dragons around the mirror all glanced at Sunny. She stared down at her claws.
“WHAT?” Glory exploded. Her curl of smoke shot up to twice its previous size.
“Yeah,” Clay said. “Isn’t that crazy? I guess that’s why Morrowseer wanted us to choose Blister as the next queen — he had this whole —”
“I AM GOING TO BITE THAT DRAGON’S HEAD OFF AND STUFF HIM IN A VOLCANO,” Glory roared.
“Too late,” Tsunami said. “Since that’s kind of already happened. The volcano part, I mean. He’s a pile of ashes now.”
“Are you serious?” Glory demanded, talking over her. “The whole thing was made up? There’s no destiny, no wings of fire? No reason for us to be trapped in a cave our whole lives? No amazing mythical SkyWing who’s infinitely better than me? Absolutely no need for any of us after all?”
“Hey, I’m mad, too,” Tsunami said. “But —”
“LET’S GO BACK AND KILL HIM AGAIN.”
“At least we don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Tsunami pointed out. “No destiny means we can do whatever we want. The Talons of Peace can go shove a puffer fish up their noses.”
“But Sunny was really upset,” Clay said. “She was always kind of excited about the prophecy.”
Kind of excited? Sunny lashed her tail. It wasn’t just some fun adventure I was looking forward to, Clay.
“Oh, Sunny will be fine,” said Tsunami. “You know her. She’s always happy about everything. By tomorrow she’ll be smiling again, and by next week she probably won’t even remember the prophecy. She just needs something new to care about, like making Starflight better.”
“Well, I can think of lots of ways to keep her busy,” Glory said. “For one, she can find me someone to yell at. I seriously cannot believe this. If I didn’t have to act like a queen right now, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.” Her voice trailed off into muffled growling.
Sunny glared at the Obsidian Mirror. This was exactly what she hated most about the way her friends saw her, although hearing them say it so bluntly made it much worse. As if acting happy means I don’t really care about anything. As if I just need to be distracted and I’ll forget about the whole point of our existence and all the dragons who are counting on us. As if my brain were the size of a blueberry, three MOONS.
She caught Fierceteeth looking at her with a wry smirk.
“Not too impressed with your intelligence, are they?” said the NightWing.
Sunny scowled back at her.
“It sounds like they like her,” said Strongwings dubiously. “But not like they think she’s particularly useful or important. I’m not sure they will give us the rainforest in exchange for her.”
I’m not either, Sunny thought. Not that they should. But … what would they do to get me back? Anything? Or will they figure, “Hey, she’ll be fine as a hostage. Remember she’s always happy about everything. And that should be pretty distracting for her! Perfect!”?