Chapter 3

Suddenly there was a thundering crash from the central cave. Clay heard the

entrance boulder slam back into place, and then the rumble of heavy

footsteps. From the extra squish-flap sound of them, he knew that it must be

Webs.

"Something's happening," Tsunami said. She hurried to the door, her

ears twitching and the spiny ridge along her back standing straight up. "We

have to go listen."

Starflight spread his wings slowly. "I'm sure we'll find out what the

fuss is in the morning."

"I don't want to wait that long." Tsunami spun around to jab his

underbelly with her tail, and he tipped backward with a grunt. "Don't be a

smoke-breather! Let's go!" She whirled out of the cave.

Clay winced as his sore muscles sprang into action. He followed Glory

to the central cave. Glory's scales were already changing to match the

mottled gray-and-black rocks. In a moment she'd be nearly impossible to

see.

Starflight slipped past to join her, and the two of them hurried away

toward the tunnel that led to the big dragons' cave. They vanished almost

immediately into the shadows. Hidden by their coloring, they'd get as close

as they could to eavesdrop.

But Clay and Tsunami had an even better shot of hearing everything, if

they hurried. Tsunami was already charging across the cave to the river.

"What about Sunny?" Clay called quietly. He could hear the little

SandWing rummaging around in her sleeping cave, putting scrolls away.happy 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.""We'll come up with something to tell her later," Tsunami hissed back.

Clay felt sorry that Sunny was the only one who didn't know about

their spying games, but they'd learned their lesson about trusting her with

secrets years ago. Sunny hadn't meant to tell Dune about the pile of rocks

the dragonets were collecting. Their plan was to build a tower to the sky

hole, back when they were too small to fly. They'd only wanted to stick

their heads out and look around. But one day Sunny forgot to be careful

around Dune, and the next day all the collected rocks were gone from their

hiding place. That was the end of that plan — and of Sunny getting to know

anything.

Tsunami disappeared into the river with a nearly soundless splash. The

pale green flecks under her dark blue scales shimmered as she swam

upriver. Clay dove in after her, wishing he could see in the dark like she

could. At least she'd remembered to activate the glow-in-the-dark stripe

along her tail.

MudWings couldn't breathe underwater like SeaWings, but they could

hold their breath for more than an hour. So whenever the dragonets wanted

to spy on their guardians, Clay and Tsunami could use the river to get closer

than the others.

He caught up to the SeaWing as she was wriggling through the

underwater gap in the cave walls. It made Clay nervous every time,

squeezing through such a small space. He wished he hadn't eaten that extra

cow at dinner.

His claws scrabbled on the rocks, catching in the crevices. There was a

brief, terrifying moment as his midsection got stuck. Would he drown down

here? Would the prophecy be ruined because of an extra cow?

Then, with a whoosh of bubbles, he popped through and shot after

Tsunami.

Her tail stripe went dark as they swam quietly into the guardians' cave.

The three older dragons hardly paid any attention to the river, except for

Webs, who sometimes slept in the shallows. It would never occur to them

that two pairs of dragonet ears might be poking out of the water, listening.

Clay drifted to a stop near the entrance while Tsunami swam to the far

side of the room. That way at least one of them could hear, no matter where

the minders were talking.

Tonight, however, Clay was pretty sure everyone could hear

everything, including Glory and Starflight in the passageway outside. Fromthe way Kestrel was shouting, it was possible even the SkyWings up in the

mountain peaks could hear her.

"Coming here? With no warning? After six years, suddenly he's

interested?" A jet of fire shot out of her snout and blasted the nearest rock

column.

"Maybe he wants to make sure they're ready to stop the war," Webs

suggested.

Dune snorted. "These dragonets? Then he's going to be very

disappointed." He eased himself onto a flat boulder, stretching his foreleg

stump and mangled wing toward the fire. The big SandWing dragon never

discussed his scars or how he lost his foot, but the dragonets could guess

from the anger in his voice whenever he talked about the war.

The fact that he couldn't fly was probably why he was chosen for

underground dragonet-minding duty. He clearly wasn't picked for his warm,

nurturing personality.

"We've done our best," Webs said. "The prophecy chose these

dragonets, not us."

"Does he even know what happened?" Kestrel demanded. "Does he

know about the broken egg and the RainWing? Or the defective

SandWing?"

Clay winced. Poor Sunny. He floated closer, keeping his bulky brown

length below the surface of the dark water. Through the ripples he could see

the blurred shapes of the large dragons gathered around the fire.

Webs flapped his wings. "I'm not sure what he knows or why he cares.

The message just said 'Morrowseer is coming.' I'm supposed to meet him

and bring him here tomorrow."

Morrowseer. That sounded familiar. Clay racked his brain. A dragon

from history class? One of the tribe rulers? No, it couldn't be; all the tribes

were ruled by queens.

"I'm not worried about Sunny," Dune said. "We followed the

prophecy's instructions. It's not our fault she's the way she is. But the

RainWing — he's not going to like that."

A deep growl rumbled in Kestrel's throat. "I don't like it either. I never

have."

"Glory's not that bad," Webs argued. "She's smarter than she wants us

to know.""You overestimate her because you brought her here," Dune said.

"She's lazy and worthless like the rest of her tribe."

"And she's not a SkyWing," Kestrel snapped. "We're supposed to have

a SkyWing."

Clay wished Glory didn't have to hear all this. The guardians never hid

how they felt about her, and she never acted like she cared. But he wished

he could tell her she was just as important and smart as any SkyWing.

"Well, I never thought Morrowseer would come look at them!" Webs

said. "After he dropped off Starflight's egg, I assumed we'd never see him

again. The NightWings have nothing to do with the war."

So he's a NightWing. Which means superpowered and mysterious and

full of himself. That was all Clay could remember about NightWings. He

found himself actually wishing he could get a lecture from Starflight. The

epic wonderfulness of NightWings was the black dragonet's favorite topic.

"Did the Talons say what he wants?" Kestrel asked.

"Well, it's his prophecy," Webs said. "I guess he wants to make sure

it'll actually come true."

Morrowseer. Clay felt a jolt run through him, like the stinging shock he

sometimes got when Dune whacked him with his barbed tail for not paying

attention.

Morrowseer was the NightWing who had spoken the dragonet

prophecy ten years ago. They had learned about him in history, but it was

one of many facts Clay could never remember. Who had delivered the

prophecy never seemed as important as who was in the prophecy.

But maybe Morrowseer was more important than Clay had realized.

After all, he was coming to see them. Perhaps he would take them out into

the world. Perhaps they didn't need to escape after all.

Perhaps everything was about to change.