She narrowed her eyes at him and waited.
After a moment, he remembered and added, “Your Majesty. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow, Your Majesty.”
She didn’t appreciate the hint of sarcasm in his voice, but she wouldn’t point it out in front of her soldiers. She’d discuss it with him later, somewhere private, where she could dig her claws into his scales and get a truly sincere apology.
“How is our guest?” Burn asked, dismissing the soldiers with a flick of her tail.
“Still extraordinarily not pleased to be here,” he said. “You may want to move her to a … more empty chamber. She’s made a bit of a mess of what she could reach of your collection.”
Burn hissed. “Ungrateful cow.”
“Any word on the dragonets?” he asked, following her into the great hall.
“They’ve vanished again,” she said. “Although there’s a rumor going around the Sky Kingdom that they’re responsible for torching the northernmost outpost and killing all those SkyWing soldiers — as some kind of revenge for what Queen Scarlet did to them.”
Smolder folded his wings back and looked up at her. “Do you think that’s likely?”
“I don’t know anything about them,” she said. “In the arena, they didn’t seem fierce enough to kill anything. But then they attacked Scarlet, so they’re clearly more dangerous than they look.” She stopped at the long table loaded with food that ran down the center of the hall. “I do know I don’t like them,” she muttered. “And I wish I’d gotten my claws on all of their eggs before they hatched.” She snatched up a dead hawk and ripped off its head with one bite, imagining doing the same to a certain SeaWing, or that insidious RainWing.
“It’s not going well with Ruby?” Smolder asked.
“The supposed new queen of the SkyWings is a bore and a nuisance,” Burn snarled. “She wants to ‘restore order in the Sky Kingdom’ and ‘establish the stability of her own throne’ before engaging in any more battles at my side. She’s even more difficult than her annoying mother, and she follows orders very poorly, if at all. We haven’t had a satisfying battle in weeks. I’m considering getting rid of her.”
“Sounds frustrating.” Smolder slid a platter of dates toward himself and popped two in his mouth.
“It is. I really need to kill something. It’s been too long since I last ripped out a dragon’s throat.”
Her brother sidled a few steps away, perhaps thinking he was being surreptitious, but failing. “Well,” he said. “There’s always your prisoner.”
“No, no,” Burn corrected him. “Queen Scarlet is our guest. For now. I may change my mind once I decide how useful she can be.” She glanced out at the blazing sun reflecting off the courtyard stones. “No, I have another victim in mind. Five of them, in fact.”
“Of course,” he said, ducking his head. “You just have to find them first.”
“Oh, I will,” she said. “Everyone will finally shut up about the wonderful ‘dragonets of destiny’ when I have their heads mounted on spikes on my walls.” She bared her teeth at her brother, smoke rising from her nostrils. “Mark my words. Soon we’ll put an end to this prophecy nonsense once and for all.”
Sunny thrashed furiously against the huge wings that wrapped around her.
“Quick, while they’re all distracted,” she heard a voice hiss. A shower of raindrops pattered down on Sunny’s head as the dragon holding her ducked through the leaves. It was hard to see much more than black scales, but Sunny realized she was being dragged into the forest, away from the tunnels and the crowd of dragons.
But I have to make sure Starflight is all right! She clawed at the arm that pinned her wings down, but the NightWing only grunted and held her tighter.
Wet leaves squelched and slithered under their talons. From the sounds around her, Sunny guessed there were three NightWings, including her attacker, sneaking away from the scene while everyone was focused on Starflight and Clay.
That’s … ominous. Maybe she should try to find out what they were up to. She stopped struggling and listened.
The dragons were moving fast and quietly, even without flying; in just a few heartbeats, Sunny couldn’t hear what Glory and Tsunami were shouting anymore. Her abductors also moved purposefully, as if they knew the forest well.
A hunting party, Sunny thought with a shiver. These are probably some of the dragons who came through the tunnel to kidnap RainWings.
What do they want with me?