Chapter 2

"No, I should be queen!" Tsunami insisted. "I am the eldest and

biggest and would have challenged her first!"

They both turned to look at Starflight, hidden in the shadows. The

black dragon looked as if he was trying to become even more invisible.

"Come on, Starflight," Tsunami said. "Don't be a lazy —" She caught

herself just before saying "RainWing." The teachers said things like that all

the time: "If you don't study, you're no better than a RainWing"; "What's

the matter, someone replace your brains with a RainWing's?"; "Still

sleeping? Anyone would think you were a RainWing!" (That last one was

mostly for Clay.)

But the dragonets all knew Glory hated it, no matter how much she

pretended she didn't care. It also seemed really unfair. Glory was the only

RainWing any of them had ever met, and she studied and trained harder

than anyone else.

"Er … dragon," Tsunami finished awkwardly, with a quick glance at

Glory. "Starflight, get out here."

The NightWing shuffled forward and looked down at Sunny, who had

her eyes scrunched shut. "Oh dear, oh dear," he said. "Well, now I should be

queen. As the youngest princess, I could have the longest reign. That would

be good for the SandWings. Also . . ." He paused and gave a long-suffering

sigh. "Also, I am by far the prettiest."

Sunny giggled, and Tsunami poked her to keep still. Clay swept his

treasure rocks into a pile and sat on them.

"I should kill you both right now," Glory snarled.

"You and what army?" Tsunami taunted her.

Glory stretched her neck up and bared her teeth. "That's a great idea.

I'll go get an army — an army of SeaWings — and then you'll be sorry."

"You're not the only one who can make alliances," Tsunami said. "I'll

get the SkyWings on my side. And the MudWings! Then we'll see who

wins this war!"

There was a pause. They both looked at Starflight again.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "You do that, and I'll ally myself with the

IceWing army. Also, by the way, most of the SandWings want me to be

their queen."

"They do?" Sunny said, opening her eyes. "Who says?"

"Stop talking," Tsunami said, poking her with one talon. "You're

dead.""There are lots of recent scrolls about it," Starflight explained

pompously. "Blaze is very popular with her own tribe."

"So why can't she be queen?" Sunny asked. "If that's who they want?"

"Because Burn is bigger and scarier and could crush her like a bug if

they actually fought claw to claw," Glory chimed in. "And Blister — that's

me — is smarter than both of them put together. She knew she couldn't kill

Burn in a regular duel. It was her idea to involve all the other tribes and turn

their SandWing throne battle into a world war. She's probably waiting for

the other two to kill each other."

"Which one do we want to be queen?" Sunny asked. "We get to pick,

right? When we fulfill the prophecy?"

"None of them," Starflight said gloomily. "Blaze is about as smart as a

concussed sheep, Blister is most likely plotting to become queen of all the

tribes somehow, and if Burn wins, she'll probably keep the war going just

for fun. They're all pretty nasty. I guess we'll see what the Talons of Peace

decide."

"The Talons of Peace don't get to decide," Tsunami said, bristling.

"They only think they're in charge of us."

"We can still hear them out," Starflight argued. "They want what's best

for us and Pyrrhia."

"Easy for you to say," Glory snapped. The ruff around her neck flared

orange. "You weren't stolen from your home. The NightWings were pretty

eager to hand over your egg, weren't they?" Starflight flinched as if she'd

burned him.

"Boring!" Clay shouted from his pile of rocks. "Stop fighting with

each other! Come fight me for this treasure instead!"

"No one knows what the scavenger did with the sand dragon treasure,"

Starflight said in his "top of the class" voice, turning away from Glory.

"Among other things, he stole the Lazulite Dragon, the gold SandWing

scepter, and the Eye of Onyx, which had been in the SandWing treasury for

hundreds of years."

Clay stamped his feet. Starflight's lectures always made his scales itch.

"I just want to fight somebody!" he said. Somebody who wasn't trying to

beat him into a violent rage, preferably.

As if the thought had summoned her, Kestrel suddenly loomed in the

entrance of the cave."WHAT is going on in here?" Kestrel's booming voice made all five

dragonets jump to attention. Sunny slipped as she tried to scramble to her

feet, and Starflight jumped forward to catch her.

The enormous red SkyWing slithered into the cave, glaring down at

them. "This doesn't look like studying," she hissed.

"We're s-s-s-sorry," Sunny stammered.

"No, we're not." Tsunami shot the SandWing a glare. "We were

studying. We were acting out the death of the queen that started the whole

war."

"You mean play-acting," Kestrel growled. "You are too old for

games."

"When were we ever young enough for games?" Glory muttered.

"It wasn't a game," Tsunami said. "It was a different way of learning

the history. What's wrong with that?"

"And now you're talking back," Kestrel said. She looked smug, as she

always did when Tsunami got in trouble. "That means no sleeping in the

river tonight." Tsunami scowled. Kestrel tapped the pile of scrolls by the

entrance with one claw. "The rest of you, learn from the SeaWing's

mistakes and study the correct way."

"That's not fair." Clay spoke up as Kestrel turned to go, even though it

made his heart pound. "We were all doing the same thing. We should all be

punished." Glory shook her head at him, but beside him, Sunny nodded.

Kestrel stared down at Clay. "I know who the ringleader was. Cut off

the head, and the problem goes away."

"You're going to cut off Tsunami's head?" Sunny squeaked.

Glory sighed. "It's a metaphor, featherbrain."

"Now go to bed," Kestrel said. She turned and swept out of the cave,

knocking over Starflight's neat stacks of scrolls as she went.

Clay nudged Tsunami's dark blue shoulder with his snout. "Sorry. We

tried."

"I know, thanks," Tsunami said, brushing her wing against his. "Hey,

Sunny, would you mind taking those scrolls back to our sleeping cave?"

The small gold dragon brightened. "Sure, I can do that!" She hurried to

the entrance, gathered the scattered scrolls in her front talons, and whisked

out of the cave.

"I can't stand this much longer," Tsunami said as soon as Sunny was

gone. "We have to get out of here, and soon."Clay glanced at Glory and Starflight, who didn't look surprised. "You

talked to them about it?"

"Of course," Tsunami said. "I needed their help figuring out an escape

plan." Clay couldn't help but notice that she hadn't asked him for any

escape plan ideas. Even the dragons who liked him thought he was pretty

useless.

"I'm not sure we're ready," Starflight said, wrinkling his forehead.

"There's so much we haven't learned yet. . . ."

"That's what the teachers want us to think!" Tsunami's blue scales

shifted as she shook herself from head to tail. "But we'll never know until

we get out of these horrible caves and see the world for ourselves."

"What about the prophecy?" Clay asked. "Shouldn't we wait two more

years?"

"I don't see why," Glory said. "I'm with Tsunami. Destiny is destiny,

right? So whatever we do must be the right thing. We don't need a bunch of

ancient dragons telling us how to save the world. They're not in the

prophecy."

"When do we tell Sunny?" Starflight asked, glancing at the cave's dark

opening.

"Not until the last minute," Tsunami said fiercely. "You know she can't

keep a secret. Starflight, promise you won't say anything to her."

"I won't, I won't," he said. "She's not going to like it, though. She

thinks everything is great here."

"Of course she does," Tsunami said. "She doesn't care that we get

treated like cracked eggs even though we're supposed to be the key to peace

or whatever."

"She cares," Starflight said defensively. "She just doesn't whine about

it."

"Yowch," said Glory.

Tsunami whirled to glare at Starflight, her gills pulsing. "Say that to

my face."

"I am saying it to your face," he said. "Or was I saying it to your rear

end? It's easy to get the two confused." He ducked behind Clay before

Tsunami could even bare her teeth at him.

"Hey, stop. Quit snarling at each other like mini Kestrels," Clay said,

standing up to keep his bulk between Tsunami and Starflight. "Nobody'shappy here. Sunny deals with it differently, that's all. But remember what

we decided — we five stick together or else everything gets worse, right?"

Starflight hunched his wings forward, muttering.

"Clay's right," Glory said. "The last thing we want is to be like Kestrel

or Webs or Dune."

Tsunami hissed for a moment, then shook herself. "All right, I know.

I'm trying. But this place is slowly killing me," she said. Clay shivered at

the fierce look on her face. He would not want to be the dragon standing in

her way.

"As soon as we have a plan, we go," Tsunami said, looking them each

in the eye. "Let's see them force our destiny on us when they can't find us

anymore."