“It doesn’t look like it,” Glory said. On her shoulder, her sloth woke up, chirruped sleepily, and tucked itself closer to her wing before closing its eyes again. “We’ve dreamvisited with Clay’s brother and also sent out scouts to check. It seems like that MudWing camp is in a holding pattern — no one flying off to kill IceWings, at least for now.”
“Queen Moorhen is waiting to see what happens at the stronghold,” Sunny said, shaking loose flowers off her wings. “Which means our plan really has to work, or else the invasion might still happen. Maybe if we could tell Queen Glacier that, she’d let Blaze come.”
“Maybe,” Tsunami said, “but we can’t get to the queen if she’s in her ice palace, not that it would be safe to go talk to her no matter where she is.”
“And none of us have seen her, so we can’t even dreamvisit her,” Clay pointed out.
“But we can dreamvisit Blaze,” Sunny said. “I think that’s what we have to do. Glory, you should do it. You’re really convincing.”
Glory looked down at the sapphire as Sunny passed it to her. She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, she won’t listen to me. She kept saying I shouldn’t be part of the prophecy, remember? She wouldn’t take me seriously.”
“And she’s jealous of Glory,” Deathbringer interjected. “Blaze doesn’t like any dragons prettier than she is. Which Glory is. Not that I’ve noticed, myself, personally. It’s just a fact.”
“Enough out of you,” Glory said, folding her wings in, but not before Sunny spotted the hints of pink blooming along the edges. “I’ve already said you can be the NightWing liaison, so flattery won’t get you anything else, Mr. Clever Scales.”
“It’s not flattery to state the obvious,” he said.
“It should be Sunny or Tsunami,” Glory said, ignoring him and passing the sapphire back into Sunny’s talons. “Tsunami actually got wounded trying to help her, so she might be impressed by that. But then, Tsunami is about as diplomatic as a starving rhinoceros, so I’d probably vote for Sunny.”
“I BEG YOUR PARDON,” Tsunami objected. “I can be VERY DIPLOMATIC when I WANT to be.”
“I’m sure,” Glory said. “Any other votes?”
As each of them voted for her, Sunny felt as though her own scales might turn pink.
“You are all — you’re — you’re such a bunch of —” Tsunami sputtered.
“Frog-faced blobs of camel spit?” Sunny suggested.
Tsunami started laughing so hard she nearly fell off the branch. “All right, fine,” she said, recovering at last. “I don’t see how I can compete with that kind of mastery of language.”
“But then you should use the dreamvisitor to talk to your mother,” Sunny said. “Or to someone in your kingdom. Some SeaWings should come to the stronghold, if any of them are willing, to see what happens.”
Tsunami nodded, bumping Sunny’s shoulder affectionately. “I can do that. I’d like to check on Anemone anyway.”
That night, Sunny took the dreamvisitor and flew to the pool by the tunnels. She chose the tunnel that led from the Kingdom of Sand to the rainforest. The one that led to the Night Kingdom smelled of burnt scales and fire, and still radiated heat.
She crouched in the darkest part of the tunnel, where it was pitch-black. There was nothing around her to offer a clue about where she was. Even if the dreamvisitor gave the dreamer a glimpse of her, all she would see was blackness. Hopefully Blaze would think it was a cave in the mountains, if anything.
She closed her eyes and held the blue sapphire to her head again. It hummed in a strange way, like faraway chanting faintly heard through layers of rock.
Blaze. Sunny pictured the beautiful SandWing. They’d only met once, in the Ice Kingdom. Later, she’d overheard Tsunami describing Blaze to Kinkajou: “She’s pretty but silly, one of those overly optimistic dragons. Like Sunny is sometimes, although Blaze is more self-centered.”
This comparison had made Sunny want to shred a tree with her bare claws. She was nothing, nothing like Blaze, and if Tsunami thought so, then she really must think Sunny was an idiot with no brains in her head at all.
Don’t think about that now. Concentrate on getting into Blaze’s dreams, she thought, and then she opened her eyes and realized she was already there. She stood in the desert, claws sinking into warm sand.
Blaze was flying, her polished scales shimmering in the bright hot sunlight. She shone against the clear blue sky, and beautiful jewels sparkled all along her scales. She kept circling in the air and twisting her head to look down, not far from where Sunny was, but she didn’t seem to notice Sunny at first. Sunny lifted herself onto her back talons to look around and spotted a clear pool of water not far away. Blaze was admiring herself in the perfectly still reflection.
“Good grief,” Sunny muttered. She flared her wings and waved at the SandWing in the sky. It took a lot of flapping before Blaze finally gave a little start and veered around to stare at Sunny.
Sunny beckoned, wanting to have this conversation on solid ground.
Blaze landed in front of her, kicking sand up Sunny’s nose without noticing she’d done so. She swished her tail around and sat gracefully.