“No,” Morrowseer nearly shouted. “What are you waiting for? That was an order! I said kill him!”
He’s serious, Starflight realized. And then Viper lunged at him, her poisonous tail arching forward like a scorpion’s. On his other side, Ochre’s claws slashed at his wing, missing by a hair. And Flame made the fire-is-coming hissing sound Starflight remembered from his terrible training sessions with Kestrel.
Morrowseer was probably hoping to see Starflight’s fighting skills in action, but Starflight didn’t care. He knew better than to rely on those. He also knew he couldn’t do what he normally did, which was freeze and hope nobody noticed him.
Starflight ducked under Ochre’s wing, shoved Squid into Viper, dodged around Fatespeaker, and leaped out of the cave.
Wind whistled through his wings as he sailed down the cliff. The shouts of the dragonets echoed behind him. He knew they’d be right on his tail.
He had to find somewhere to hide.
Starflight shot down the cliffside and banked toward the ocean. His eyes scanned the ground below him frantically.
The good news was, if he’d understood them right, the dragonets hadn’t been on the island very long and probably didn’t know its geography at all.
The bad news was, neither did he.
Right now he was on the other side of the volcano from the forest. Here, there were no trees. Everything below him was dark rocks or rivers of glowing lava — nothing to hide behind.
Ahead of him there was a strip of black-sand beach that seemed to circle the island. He remembered Glory saying that the tunnel to the rainforest was in a cave above a black-sand beach.
He wondered for a moment if he could find it, but there wasn’t time with the dragonets coming after him. He couldn’t outfly them for long either — Flame, like most SkyWings, had enormous wings, which made them faster than dragons from any other tribe.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the bright colors of four dragonets flash through the sky, much closer than he would have liked.
Only four.
Fatespeaker was nowhere to be seen.
Disobeying orders? Or sneaking up on me some other way?
He didn’t have time to think about it. Starflight twisted into a dive and swooped as close to the ground as he dared. His black scales would make him harder to see against the rocks than if he were up in the sky.
A blast of steam shot out of one of the vents in the ground and he flapped hastily aside, barely avoiding the heat. From this close, the rocks below looked even more like black dragon scales, but all melted and fused together. Like mine will be if Flame and Viper get their claws on me.
The problem was, the dragonets were so close behind him that they’d see anything he did. They’d be able to follow him straight to any hiding place. It was too risky to try to lose them in the water or the clouds, not with a SeaWing and a SkyWing among them.
He beat his wings faster, trying to think. Use your brain, Starflight. That’s all you’ve got.
There was only one place to hide: the fortress. Maybe he’d find a room he could lock himself into, or maybe his father would help him. He swooped into an arc, heading toward it, hoping the dragonets wouldn’t cut him off before he reached it.
Another blaze of heat brushed his tail, and he twisted to see where the steam had come from this time.
To his horror, Flame was only a few wingbeats behind him, with fire curling out of his nose.
The sight of the SkyWing propelled Starflight forward, the dragonet beating his wings as hard as he could. But his muscles already ached with exhaustion, and he knew he’d never make it to the fortress before Flame caught up.
Then he spotted the caves that lined the lava river below.
The RainWing prisons! Glory had described hers in vivid detail.
Suddenly a blast of thick smoke shot out of a vent in the ground below him. This was a chance he couldn’t miss.
He dropped behind the smoke, hoping it looked as though he was still aiming for the fortress, and then spiraled tightly down and dove into the first cave he found.
A NightWing guard was lying across the entrance. Starflight shot over her head and tumbled onto the stone floor. The guard sat up in a hurry, blinking as if she’d been asleep. Farther into the cave, Starflight heard scales shifting as the imprisoned RainWing peeked out at the commotion.
“Hey!” said the guard. “What are you doing here?” She lashed her tail, looking very large all of a sudden, despite the ribs visible through her underscales. Starflight staggered up to his feet again, trying to look calm and ordinary and like he wasn’t being chased.
“I — I — I came to see the RainWing,” Starflight stammered.
“The prisoner?” The guard frowned suspiciously. “Why?”