Morrowseer gave him a dark look. “NightWings don’t get sick. Don’t tell me you have a weak stomach in addition to everything else wrong with you.”
“N-no, I don’t think so,” Starflight said, hoping he wasn’t about to throw up and prove himself wrong. “But look, there’s probably horrible bacteria all through that wound.”
“Of course there is,” Morrowseer said. “How do you think it died? My bite infected it. That’s —” He paused, frowning at Starflight. “Isn’t this how you hunt, too?”
Starflight glanced down at the horrible-smelling bird. He had a feeling he shouldn’t admit that so far Clay had done most of the hunting since they left the mountain. But he also didn’t want to admit that he didn’t understand this at all.
Use your brain, he told himself. You can figure this out.
“You bite your prey,” he said slowly. “And then you wait for it to die. And then you find it and eat it — once it’s already dead and rotting. But it doesn’t make you sick.” He squinted at Morrowseer’s teeth. “There’s something in your mouth that kills them, even if the bite itself wasn’t fatal. Is it venom?”
Morrowseer shook his head. “Some NightWings think so, but none of our scientists have been able to find any when they examine our tribe’s corpses. Nor have we had any success replicating RainWing venom shooting.” He scowled at the bird and abruptly ripped off one if its wings. “You may have this,” he said ungenerously, tossing it at Starflight.
Starflight jumped back to avoid catching it, and the wing splatted to the ground in front of him. Several wriggly things crawled out of it and he closed his eyes quickly.
“Um,” he said. “No, thank you.”
Morrowseer already had his teeth buried in the underbelly of the albatross. He tore off a mouthful and chewed for a moment, staring narrowly at Starflight.
“What do you think you’re going to eat?” he barked. “This is the NightWing way.”
“I’ll catch something else,” Starflight said. He glanced around. “A turtle or a lizard or something.”
“I’m starting to see why you’re so useless,” Morrowseer hissed. “No one’s ever taught you to be a NightWing. We assumed you’d be born superior like the rest of us, but perhaps you’re defective. Well, we don’t have time for delicate sensibilities and a lengthy turtle hunt. Eat the wing or starve.”
Starflight was too intrigued by this strange biological phenomenon to register that he’d just been called defective as well as useless.
“Listen, it might not make you sick, but I think it would make me sick,” Starflight said. He wished he could write all this down. Were there any scrolls about NightWing bites and what they did to their prey? Maybe he could study the tribe and write the first one. “I’m not used to eating infected carrion. Scientifically I would assume it’s something you have to adjust to over time, as your dragonets will have done, growing up with a diet like this. But I won’t have the correct antibodies to keep me safe. It’s not worth the risk.”
The enormous black dragon had paused midbite and was staring at Starflight with his mouth open.
“Well,” he said after a long moment, “that answers that question.”
“What question?” Starflight asked.
Morrowseer picked at his teeth with one claw and lashed his tail.
“Now I know who your father is.”
The wind off the ocean seized the tree branches and rattled them fiercely.
Starflight dug his talons into the ground.
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten to wonder who his parents were — it was more that he was terrified to hear the answer. A father like Morrowseer or Vengeance, or a mother like Greatness or Fierceteeth … perhaps it would be better never to find out, rather than have his dreams meet the inevitably awful reality.
But suddenly, the idea that a real dragon, somewhere on this island, was connected to him and might care about him was almost too much to bear.
It’s what Sunny and I always talked about — finding our parents.
“My father,” he whispered. “Didn’t you know who he was before?”
“There were a few possibilities,” Morrowseer said grimly. “But only one other dragon I know talks like you.”
He talks like me.
“Well, this is guaranteed to make him even more insufferable,” Morrowseer muttered, shredding the other albatross wing and stuffing scraps of meat in his mouth. “He’s been claiming it was his egg for the last six years.”
“Can I meet him?” Starflight asked.
“Oh, there’s no getting out of that.” Morrowseer’s tail twitched. “I’m surprised he didn’t track you down the moment you were dragged in. Must be in the middle of another big experiment. Nose in his scrolls … probably hasn’t even noticed that we’re about to go to war.”
He wants to meet me. He’ll be looking for me.
“What about my mother?” Starflight asked. “Could — could I meet her?”