In Kinkajou’s dream, she was standing in bright sunlight in a wide green bowl laced with brightly colored flowers, surrounded by thousands of RainWings — more RainWings than there could possibly be on the whole continent — all of them staring at her with expressions of disdain that Starflight had never seen in real life on any RainWing.
Glory was there, in the center of the bowl, but this Glory was impossibly big and impossibly beautiful, and a crown of orange hibiscus, gold chain, and rubies sparkled atop her head. That’s how Kinkajou sees her, Starflight thought. This Glory smiled more, too, at least at Kinkajou.
A crown, he thought suddenly. Does that mean Glory won? Is she now queen of the RainWings? Or is this a wishful dream?
Kinkajou backed away from the stares of the dragons until she reached the far edge of the bowl. Suddenly she turned and leaped off, spreading her wings.
But instead of soaring away through the trees, she fell, plummeting like a coconut toward the ground below. Her wings flapped helplessly, and when she twisted to look at them, giant holes appeared all over her wings, spreading as though acid was eating them away.
Kinkajou screamed and clawed at the air.
Starflight watched helplessly from above as the greenery swallowed her up. It’s just a dream, he told himself, but his racing heart didn’t believe him. Just a dream. Nothing you could do. She didn’t even see you here.
He wouldn’t be able to reach her in a dream like this, where her emotions were so strong. It was really strange to be in someone else’s nightmare, so different from the ones he had almost every night. His own anxiety dreams usually involved the NightWing queen telling him that dragonets who weren’t telepathic were not welcome in the tribe.
The dreamscape around him shuddered and then suddenly went dark.
She’s waking up. Starflight dug his talons into the tree branch below him, even though he couldn’t see it now and he also knew it wasn’t really there — or rather, he wasn’t really there. He wanted to hold on to the rainforest as long as he could. He didn’t want to go back to the gloomy NightWing dormitory.
Stay asleep, he thought desperately. Please see me. I need to send a message to my friends.
Now he could see faint outlines of shapes in the darkness, as if it was very early morning and the sun was rising far away. In front of him, Kinkajou was curled on the leaf again, still asleep but twitching restlessly. A silvery shaft of moonlight lit up the expression of pain on her face. She’d snapped out of the nightmare into a shallow sleep with no dreams, where she was half aware of everything around her without being fully awake. He could be here, but she wouldn’t see him, not now.
“Another nightmare?” said a quiet voice behind him.
Starflight whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat.
Sunny.
The SandWing was just landing on the branch beside the queenly RainWing. Her golden wings folded in and she flipped her tail over her back talons the way she always did. A moment later, a glint of blue scales appeared through the trees behind Sunny: Tsunami, flapping down to land next to her.
“I think so,” said the older RainWing. “I wasn’t sure whether to wake her. How is the queen?”
“Mad,” said Sunny. “Super mad. I keep telling her there’s no way Starflight went to the NightWings on his own, but she’s convinced he’s betrayed us.”
Shock rippled through Starflight’s wings. It hadn’t occurred to him that his friends would think he’d left them on purpose. The queen — does she mean Glory? Glory thinks I betrayed them?
Then he remembered telling the NightWing council that the RainWings were planning to attack, and his scales felt hot with shame. He may have been abducted, but he hadn’t done anything to help his friends since he got here. He hadn’t tried to escape. He hadn’t even argued with Morrowseer or tried to stop the NightWings.
Maybe he really didn’t belong in the prophecy. Maybe Fatespeaker was the better dragon to save the world.
“Starflight,” Tsunami snorted. “Of all dragons, like he’d ever betray us. Can you actually imagine how it could have happened? First, making a decision. Not exactly Starflight’s forte. Then, actually doing something instead of sitting and waiting for it to happen to him. And not just anything: jumping into a dark hole with angry dragons on the other side. Starflight. Are you kidding me? STARFLIGHT.”
“Oh my gosh, stop it,” Sunny said. “You’ve been arguing with Glory all day. You don’t have to convince me that Starflight wouldn’t do something like this.” She hopped down to Kinkajou’s side, nearly passing right through Starflight. He shivered and leaned toward her. He could almost imagine he felt the warmth of her scales as she went by.
“You don’t think he chose to go to the Night Kingdom?” asked the dragon Starflight didn’t know.