She didn’t want to follow that thought to its possible conclusion.
“I can’t believe I have a daughter,” Stonemover said, and Sunny felt a little warmer toward him, hearing the sadness in his voice. “I used to dream — I would think about what our dragonets might look like, if Thorn and I ever — but I thought it was too late.”
“I bet you didn’t picture me,” Sunny said ruefully. “I don’t have the SandWing tail barb and I also don’t have any cool NightWing powers. I always thought maybe I looked weird because of the prophecy, somehow, but —”
He would have sat up if he could, she could tell. His head twitched a little closer to her. His breath smelled like squirrel. “Prophecy?”
“About the dragonets saving the world and stopping the war,” Sunny said. “You know. You must know.”
“Yes,” he mused.
“I’m one of them,” she said. “ ‘Hidden alone from the rival queens,’ that’s me. It’s kind of a long story.”
“But —” he started, and paused.
And then Sunny was scared, because the look in his eyes was the look of news she knew she didn’t want, and it was righteousness and pity and truth-is-the-important-thing and she didn’t want it, she didn’t want him to say it.
“Stop, don’t,” she blurted, but at the same time he said:
“But don’t you know? The prophecy isn’t real.”
“Hmm,” Stonemover said, studying her expression. “You did know. You know it’s fake.”
“Well, I’ve heard that,” Sunny said. The walls felt as if they were tilting in toward her. She curled her claws and twitched her tail, avoiding his eyes. “That’s what Morrowseer said. But why should we trust him?”
Stonemover managed to look faintly amused. “Morrowseer wouldn’t make himself seem any less powerful if he could ever avoid it. He must have been forced to tell you the truth, for some reason.”
“He was manipulating us, like always,” Sunny said. “But just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean the prophecy couldn’t be real.”
“Oh, little dragon,” Stonemover said, and she got the feeling he’d already forgotten her name. “I promise you the prophecy is not real. I was there when they came up with it. I was also there when the NightWing scribes were ordered to write more about our so-called powers, building them up in every scroll, every story. Queen Battlewinner planned that carefully. But no NightWing has had any power to see the future or read minds in over a hundred years, if anyone ever did. That is the truth.”
Sunny wanted to throw things and yell like her mother did when she was angry. “NightWings,” she growled. “You guys make it really, really hard to like you. Why are you telling me this? You obviously haven’t told the Talons, or everyone would know.”
“Because I suspect I am dying,” he said with a dry cough, “and someone should know. If not my own daughter, then who?”
“Well, hooray,” Sunny said. “Lucky me.” She tucked her tail around her talons and hunched her wings up. After a moment, she said, “Really? Are you really dying?”
“I’m always dying,” he answered, which also made Sunny want to poke him in the nose. She honestly had no idea why her mother had ever liked this dragon.
But at least he’s telling me the truth. That’s more than I can say for most of the grown-up dragons I’ve ever known. She tried to push down the bitterness she felt about NightWings and all their lies; she tried to look at just Stonemover, her father, and see him as his own dragon, not one of a tribe.
He’s really sad.
Imagine if I had been born with animus powers into a terrible place like the NightWing island. The queen must have used him from the moment they found out what he could do. He never had a choice about what to do with his life.
Maybe nobody does.
Even though I want to end the war so badly, maybe there’s nothing I can do.
The prophecy was really fake. Her life was really a lie. She was really not special, and she was really not destined to save the world.
She looked at her father, whose eyes had closed. His breathing was starting to slow down, as if he were falling asleep again.
“Can I stay here tonight?” she asked.
“Please do,” he said quietly.
Sunny blew out the torch and curled up in a ball in the warmest corner of the cave, across from Stonemover’s petrified scales. She rested her chin on her front talons, feeling like her own scales were made of stone, too, heavy and exhausting to lug around. She wished she could wake up back in the cave under the mountain two months ago, before any of this had happened, when she still believed in the prophecy, their destiny, a wonderful future, and perfect parents waiting out there for all of them.
Her eyes closed, and her sadness drifted away into sleep.
*