“She can draw?” Sunny said, fascinated. She’d learned to write and draw with a paintbrush that was more than half this scavenger’s size. “With what?”
“She made herself this adorable tiny paintbrush. She likes to make things,” Smolder said proudly. “She’s also made all these cute little costumes for herself, don’t ask me why. It’s like how birds build nests, I think — all instinct, but really endearing. Although Burn complains that she’s worse than moths, leaving holes in all our curtains. I’d call it resourceful, if anyone asked me.”
Resourceful? I’ll say, Sunny thought, remembering the burnt-out village as well. She gave the scavenger an appraising look, and the scavenger stared back at her with those dragonlike brown eyes, deeper and wiser than you’d expect. What’s going on in that tiny head? Sunny wondered. Her brain can’t be any bigger than a grapefruit. But maybe it works in mysterious ways. Maybe scavengers are cleverer than they seem.
Another dragon suddenly loomed out of the shadows, but Sunny was able to stop herself from flinching away this time. It was another stuffed specimen, this time a MudWing with striated red lines along his outstretched wings. He had no claws, no teeth, and a puzzled expression.
“Three moons,” Sunny said. “What happened to him?”
“The seller said his egg was animus-touched,” Smolder said. “Or rather, animus-cursed. Some kind of vengeance thing, maybe. Who would want a dragonet without claws or teeth? How could he live? He was destined to end up here eventually.”
Like me, Sunny thought despite herself. Weird-looking, no other use for me.
Stop that. You have a real destiny.
She tilted her head at the sad, stuffed dragon. Animus-touched? Could that be what happened to my egg? Did some dragon do this to me before I was hatched? Deliberately?
But who, and why?
Her mind flashed back to the questions Thorn had asked the NightWings. She was looking for a NightWing named Stonemover … that sure sounded like an animus name. What if he did something to my egg?
She was so preoccupied with this question that when they came within sight of an orange dragon, she assumed it was another stuffed specimen and barely glanced at it.
But then the dragon lunged at them with a furious hiss, and Smolder backed up in a hurry, nearly knocking Sunny off the winding ramp. She dug her talons into the cracks in the stone as her heart tried to leap out of her chest.
“Sssssssmolder,” Queen Scarlet hissed. “Finally.”
Coils of smoke wreathed around her horns, but they couldn’t hide what was underneath — how the side of the SkyWing’s face was melted into a hideous dark mess, revealing a glimpse of her jawbone underneath and pulling one of her yellow eyes down and out of proportion with the rest of her face. The rubies that had been embedded in her scales were gone above that eye, and so were all her earlier adornments — the golden chain mail, the medallions, the rings on her claws, the rubies on her wings. The only jewels left were the tiny rubies above her good eye, which glittered malevolently in the dim light.
The last time they’d been face-to-face, it had been through the bars of a cage. Sunny had been the prisoner and Scarlet had been one of the most beautiful, powerful dragons in Pyrrhia.
No wonder she hates us, Sunny thought. But Glory did this to her to save the rest of us. We’d all be dead by now otherwise.
“Here’s your water,” Smolder said, setting the pail down on a claw-scratched X on the floor.
The queen snatched at the pail, and Sunny realized that the X marked the very limit of her reach. Heavy chains kept her from moving any farther.
On the other side of the X, littering the floor around Scarlet’s claws, were shards of shattered glass and puddles of glowing green slime. Here and there in the puddles lay the corpses of peculiar insects — Sunny could see oddly bulging caterpillars, nine-legged hairy spiders, and a bright blue dragonfly whose back bristled with sharp needle spines.
“When are you going to clean this up?” Scarlet snapped at Smolder, her snout dripping as she came up for air from the bucket. “There’s slime on my beautiful tail and I keep finding bits of horrible bugs in between my scales.”
He snorted. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before smashing up your host’s prized collection.” He nodded at something lumpy glittering in the shadows behind her. “Burn is going to be especially upset about her NightWing. They’re not exactly easy to replace.”
Sunny realized that Scarlet must have been chained up near a stuffed NightWing, which she had then clawed and shredded in a fit of rage. Sunny shuddered.
Scarlet lashed her tail. “I’ll get to the rest of her toys, too, once I’m free.”