“Scarlet,” Smolder said patiently, “we’re not keeping you prisoner, we’re keeping you safe. If you were in your own kingdom right now, you’d be dead. You’re in no condition to fight Ruby for the throne.”
“That’s Queen Scarlet to you,” she said fiercely. Her gaze moved to Sunny, and then she swiveled her head to stare with her good eye. Sunny took an involuntary step back behind Smolder.
“I know her,” Scarlet growled. “That dragon is mine.”
“I am not,” Sunny retorted. “I’m not anybody’s.”
“I know where your RainWing friend is,” the queen snarled, pacing to the end of her chains and glaring at Sunny. “As soon as I am free, she is dead.”
“Then I hope you stay locked in here forever,” Sunny snapped.
“I have friends, too,” Scarlet hissed. “I won’t be here much longer.”
Sunny looked up at Smolder, but his expression was more tired than worried. “Come along,” he said to Sunny. “We have to fly around her. I know it’s inconvenient, but I’m not taking responsibility for unchaining her — Burn can move her when she gets here, if she wants to.”
He spread his wings and soared over Scarlet to the next level up, with Flower clinging tightly to his neck. Sunny followed, a bit nervously, her wings brushing the walls as she tried to stay as far out of Scarlet’s reach as possible.
They landed close to the top of the tower, where the light was dimmest, and Sunny saw with a sinking heart that there were chains just like Scarlet’s here, waiting for her. They lay collapsed on the ground like dead snakeskins, and they clanked horribly as Smolder picked them up.
Sunny curled her tail around her talons and looked at them for a moment, breathing deeply to calm herself. She looked up and met Smolder’s eyes.
“Do I really have to stay here?” she asked quietly.
Smolder hesitated with the chains draped across his front talons. Flower looked from him to Sunny, then slipped off his back. To Sunny’s surprise, the little scavenger came right up and patted Sunny on the side of her neck. She didn’t have to be able to talk; the gesture said clearly, “Don’t worry, you’ll be all right” — as clearly as if the scavenger had had a tail to twine around Sunny’s.
“It’s not like I have much choice,” Smolder said. “I can’t imagine what else to do with you.”
“It’s just … really dark,” Sunny said. Her scales were practically crying out for the sunlight right beyond these walls. But more than that, the thing she couldn’t bring herself to say, was that she could already tell that being in here too long would carve out her soul one miserable moment at a time, until she’d be as empty and hopeless as one of the stuffed dragons.
“I know,” Smolder said, and Sunny sensed the first hint of possible compassion in his voice. She wondered if it was partly because Flower felt sorry for her.
“Tell you what,” he said after a pause. “I’ll think about it tonight and see if I can come up with something else tomorrow. If not, I’ll take you out for a bit at midday, at least let you stretch your wings in the sun, as long as you promise not to escape. Deal?”
“Sure,” Sunny said. “Thank you.” It wasn’t much, but it sounded like the best she could hope for.
He clamped the chains around her ankles, locking them with another one of the keys around his neck. Sunny turned her head away, unwilling to watch herself made a prisoner yet again, and spotted a large box tucked against the wall not far away, at the very end of the spiraling ramp.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Something new for Burn’s collection,” Smolder said, glancing up at it. “The dragon who came by to sell it claims it’s something rare and priceless and that Burn will definitely want it, but that it might die as soon as we open the box. So I’m leaving it closed until Burn gets here, and she can decide what to do with it.”
“You don’t even know what it is?” Sunny asked. “What if it’s an empty box?”
“Then I’ll get yelled at,” Smolder said, “but he’ll get hunted down and killed, so I doubt he’d risk it. Dragons have tried to trick Burn before — sewing odd animal parts together, dyeing normal insects strange colors — and it has always proven to be a very bad idea. Besides, he haggled so hard over the price, he nearly refused to give it to me. It must be something pretty unusual. Also, it keeps making this strange high-pitched hissing noise.”
He gave her a sharp look as he snapped the last chain on. “Don’t get any ideas from Scarlet’s bad behavior. My sister has reasons to keep the SkyWing queen alive. She has a lot more reasons to make you dead … so don’t add to them.”
Sunny nodded, not trusting herself to speak. This was the nightmare — the situation she and her friends had always feared. She was in Burn’s clutches now, and she couldn’t think of any possible way she might escape.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Smolder said. He dipped his wing toward the scavenger. “Up, Flower.”