Starflight had been terrified plenty of times since leaving the caves where he grew up. He’d thought nothing could ever be worse than the moment Queen Scarlet walked in with her guards, killed Dune, and took all the dragonets prisoner. But then there was the moment he stood in her arena, knowing that she intended for him to be violently dead by the end of the day. That was followed by the moment Queen Coral had them thrown in her prison, Tsunami’s plunge through the electric eels, the SkyWing attack on the Summer Palace, their frantic escape right through the middle of a battle, and perhaps the actual worst, when Sunny had disappeared right in front of him in the rainforest. Not to mention all the scary things he’d faced since being abducted by the NightWings. In fact, he’d spent most of the last few weeks in a state of near-constant terror.
This was a whole other level. A level of that’s not scientifically possible and has it been under the lava this whole time? and THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE and now this is really it and there’s no one to protect me and I’m definitely absolutely one hundred percent going to die because THAT IS A DRAGON WHO LIVES IN LAVA.
Its head and wings came first, in a fountain of golden molten lava, and then a set of claws shot out and clutched the side of the cauldron. The dragon shook itself, sending splatters of lava flying. Slowly the lava poured off her head, revealing a thickset neck, a battle-scarred snout, and black scales that gleamed like polished ebony against the orange-yellow pool around her.
“Starflight, Starflight, Starflight,” Fatespeaker whispered in a panicked rush, shaking his arm violently. “Do something!”
“Like what?” he whispered back. The tunnel was on the far side of the cauldron. They’d have to get past the dragon and the lava she was dripping everywhere if they wanted to run away, which was what he really, really wanted to do.
Hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
The dragon in the lava leaned forward and glared at them. Buzzing white steam seemed to be rising from her scales. Her tongue flicked in and out as she studied the two dragonets, and Starflight realized there was a glint of icy blue in the depths of her dark eyes. When she opened her mouth, he spotted two teeth that were the same shade of blue, looking more like icicles than regular teeth.
“Who?” she rasped suddenly. Her voice was hard to hear — creaky and quiet and rough and eerie, like claws scraping on ice several caves away.
“N-n-n-no one,” Starflight stammered.
“Please don’t kill us,” Fatespeaker squeaked.
“Don’t make me,” said the lava dragon. She hissed again, her claws flexing around the edge of the cauldron. “How?”
“How … did we find you?” Starflight filled in. “We were looking for the queen — Queen Battlewinner.”
“I,” said the dragon. Her eyes narrowed. “You?”
“We’re — we’re the dragonets of the prophecy,” Fatespeaker said. “I’m Fatespeaker and this is Starflight.”
“Ahhh.” The queen sank lower in the lava. “Hmm. Unimpressive.”
“How is this happening?” Starflight burst out. “Why aren’t you dead? The temperature you’re immersed in — the boiling point — the physical reaction of lava and scales — I saw what happened to Vengeance. You can’t be swimming in lava. It just isn’t possible. Even dragons born from blood-red eggs, like Clay, could probably only withstand that kind of heat for a minute or two, and as far as I know NightWings don’t have eggs like that anyway, so — this can’t be happening, scientifically speaking.”
The queen let out a small, possibly amused snort, blowing bubbles across the surface of the lava. “Mastermind’s son,” she rasped. She studied him for a moment, then leaned forward, opening her jaws as wide as they would go.
For a moment, Starflight thought she was about to lunge out of the cauldron and bite their heads off. But then he realized from her odd position that she was actually holding herself so he could look inside her mouth. His fear slowly started to fade as curiosity took over, and he stepped closer.
“Starflight,” Fatespeaker whispered anxiously. “This wasn’t in any of my visions! I’m really not sure about this!”
“Three moons,” he said, his eyes widening. “Fatespeaker, look! You can see right down her throat … and it’s blue.” The walls of Battlewinner’s throat were lined with what looked like pale blue frost, small swirling patterns that were feathery or sharp and all glinted oddly.
“What is it?” Starflight met Battlewinner’s eyes again.
She snapped her mouth shut. “Ice.” The creak of her voice seemed to rattle her to her wingtips; she took a deep breath, dipped her whole head in the lava, and emerged again.
“Ice?” Starflight echoed. His mind whirled into gear, trying to solve this mystery. Was this connected to the NightWing bacteria that killed their prey? Or had she just swallowed a lot of ice to combat the lava? That made no sense. Where would the dragons even get ice out here on the island, where it was perpetually too warm?
Queen Battlewinner was watching him, as if this was a test and she had decided to save her breath and see if he could figure it out.
Her breath …
“IceWings!” Starflight burst out. “Their weapon — the frostbreath!”