He shrugged, which as far as she could tell meant “no.”
Ostrich had been released during the night, shooting one last terrified look at Sunny before bolting back toward the distant fires of the Scorpion Den. Sunny thought that Addax had deliberately freed the dragonet while the Den was still visible behind them. Optimistically she thought perhaps he was concerned for Ostrich’s safety; it seemed kind not to make her find her way in total darkness.
She could almost hear her friends laughing at her in her head. “That’s right, Sunny, your kidnapper is a real sweetheart. He’s handing you over to Burn out of the goodness of his heart, too.”
But if he was doing this for his family … for someone he cared about … Sunny glanced over at the scarred dragon and thought, There’s more to his story. There’s always more to everyone’s story, if you bother to find out what it is.
The sun had cleared the mountains when they came to the sentries: a pair of SandWings carrying long spears. Relentless heat beat down from the cloudless sky, making the smell much worse. Sunny’s wings ached from flying so long without stopping. She could see the brownish-yellow walls of the stronghold up ahead, stained and crusted with the dark red and black gore that dripped from the grisly decorations.
It was a vast palace, far larger than she had realized when she’d seen it from a distance. The ramparts seemed to stretch across the horizon, and Sunny guessed that two or three Scorpion Dens could fit inside, or about a thousand of the caves she’d grown up in.
“Hold it,” said one of the sentries, swinging the spear toward them. He squinted. “Addax?”
“Ho there,” said Addax. He waved a claw, and the dragons behind him all paused, beating the air and craning to see past his wings.
“Picked up some friends somewhere, I see,” said the sentry, half jokingly. “Are you invading, or what’s all this?”
“Brought a present for the queen,” said Addax. He flicked his tail at Sunny, and she hissed at him. “Recognize this one?”
Both sentries drew in a quick breath. “From the party in the Sky Kingdom,” said one of them. “Scarlet was going to give her to Queen Burn.”
That’s where I’ve seen Addax before, Sunny realized. Bowing and scraping behind Burn as she examined me like a deformed gemstone. Before he got his scar.
“And now I’ve found her and I’m giving her to the queen,” said Addax smugly.
The sentry looked skeptically at their entourage. “And you need seven dragons to transport this midget creature safely?”
“I’m terrifying when you get to know me,” Sunny volunteered. She heard a couple of the dragons behind her chuckle, but Addax shot them a stern look and they subsided.
“Wait,” said the other sentry. “Doesn’t that mean she’s — I mean, she’s one of —”
“Yes,” Addax said. “So stop delaying and let us through, all right?”
The sentries flapped aside, both of them examining Sunny intently as she and her escort flew past them. In all of Sunny’s fantasies about fulfilling the prophecy and saving Pyrrhia, she’d never imagined there’d be quite so much staring.
And she certainly hadn’t counted on getting locked up as often as she already had been.
As they swooped down toward the thick, forbidding walls of Burn’s stronghold, Sunny thought with a shudder that this might be the worst prison so far. Scarlet’s palace had had gladiator fights, but at least she hadn’t kept the dismembered parts of her enemies on display.
“And it isn’t exactly easy to cut off a dragon’s head,” Sunny remembered Starflight saying, “even if it’s already dead.” They’d been reading in the study cave. He’d rolled out the scroll and tapped the drawing of the stronghold. “You have to be pretty brutal to get through the scales and everything else.”
Sunny also remembered that the outer walls had been added by Burn after Queen Oasis died. They look solid and thick and imposing … but useless for keeping out dragons who can fly. The only creatures they’d really keep out for certain are scavengers. A scavenger had killed Burn’s mother, after all. Is Burn afraid of them? From what Sunny had seen of her, it was hard to imagine that Burn was afraid of anything.
Addax led the way as they spiraled down onto the hot white stones of an enormous courtyard that encircled the old palace. Long, squat buildings had been constructed along the inner side of the walls; they appeared to be extra barracks for soldiers. Small gatherings of armed SandWings were visible in each direction, either cleaning weapons, sparring, or sleeping.