Winter Turning
Page 6
They landed one by one, shaking out their wings and sinking their talons into the clawmarked wooden floor. Winter’s gaze swept over the interior of the pavilion, which was almost empty. Two scroll racks stood on either side of a simple raised dais, only a few inches higher than the rest of the platform. Not much of a throne, Winter reflected as Glory climbed onto it and settled herself with her tail around her claws.
“Now,” she said, “I know who you all are, but let’s officially meet anyway. I’m Glory, queen of the RainWings and the NightWings. My overenthusiastic bodyguard there is Deathbringer.” She lifted one talon into the air and a sleek, beautiful gray sloth clambered down from the roof beams to curl up on her shoulder. “And this is Silver.”
“Royal pet, not royal lunch,” Qibli said to Winter, nudging his wing. “So try not to eat it, if you can restrain yourself. I’m Qibli, Your Majesty. One of Queen Thorn’s advisors.”
“Welcome. And then we have Moonwatcher, Kinkajou, and of course, Prince Winter,” said Glory. “My friends will be very relieved that you’re all safe. Jade Mountain is a bit of a mess right now, and it didn’t help to have one entire winglet disappear.”
“Sorry,” Kinkajou squeaked.
“Sorry,” Moon agreed, looking down at her talons.
There was a pause. The queen gazed sternly down her nose at the other dragons.
“All right, I’m sorry for making them worry,” Qibli said. “But Winter can’t go searching for Icicle and Hailstorm all by himself.”
“Yes, I can,” Winter said sharply. “That’s the entire plan. That’s what I’m going to do.” It suddenly occurred to him to wonder what would happen if someone else found Icicle before he did. Would they try to hurt her? They’d end up dead if they did; she was bigger, more ferocious, and ten times better trained than any of these little dragons.
His insides gave a weird lurch as he imagined what would happen if she found Moon unguarded. Icicle would definitely kill her — the NightWing who’d foiled her plan to kill Starflight. The NightWing who was already too close to her brother, from Icicle’s point of view.
If she knew how I’ve been feeling about Moon — she’d be even more likely to kill her, he realized.
Not that he felt that way about Moon anymore. He couldn’t. Moon had lied to him and invaded his mind. He could put her safely back in the category of “Despicable, Conniving NightWings I Hate.”
He glanced over at her as she lifted her head and met his eyes. Something in her expression said, “I will help you whether you let me or not.” Much like the first time they’d met, when she’d protected his scavenger no matter how he threatened her.
It doesn’t mean anything, this twisting feeling in my chest. I can hate her and still not want Icicle to kill her. It doesn’t mean that I care about her.
“Well, let’s see,” Glory said, sitting up alertly. “Here come my watchers.”
Dragons began appearing out of the leaves, materializing like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. In alarmingly bright shades of yellow, blue, and pink, they swooped into the pavilion and landed in a row in front of Queen Glory, until there were six dragons lined up. Although a “line” was hardly the right description for the slipshod way they were standing, some of them with their wings akimbo or their tails flopping all over the place.
No discipline, Winter thought disapprovingly, remembering the rigid, perfectly coiled lines of guards that attended Queen Glacier.
He also remembered practicing for hours to get that stance just right: his wings folded exactly so, his tail in the right position, his snout up and shoulders back. It was agony to hold that pose for too long, but his mother had made him stand like that before every meal, making him wait until she approved before letting him eat. These RainWings need someone to whip them into shape, he thought, resettling his tail with a small rattle of spikes.
“I called you in to ask if any of you have seen any sign of an IceWing today,” Queen Glory said. “For those of you who don’t remember the lessons, those are the white or blue dragons with spiked tails and cold scales.”
One of the RainWings leaned toward her. In a loud whisper that carried to the other side of the pavilion, he hissed, “Your Majesty, I think there’s one of them right behind me.”
The dragon next to him looked around in alarm, spotted Winter, and leaped backward, nearly knocking one of her companions off the platform.
“Oh my gosh, is that what they look like?” she cried. “Why’s it pointy all over?”
“Look at its tail!” yelped another. “It really is all spiky!”
“And can you feel how cold it is? Whoa, that’s so weird,” said a fourth, reaching for Winter’s wing. Winter twitched back and growled at her.
Glory exhaled slowly through her nose. “This is our guest, Prince Winter of the IceWings. Have you seen any dragons today that look like him?”
“No,” they all answered, almost in unison.
“Would’ve noticed if I did!” one of them offered. “Look at how sparkly he is, like raindrops on a cobweb or something.”
“I’ll say,” agreed another. “Plus brrrr, I think I’d have woken up if something that cold went by me.”
“Me too!” said a third.
The queen closed her eyes eloquently.
Deathbringer cleared his throat. “Permission to check with the backup NightWing guards?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” Glory said, waving him away. “But make sure you tell them if they do see an IceWing, they are to follow her, not attack her, especially if they’re on their own.”
Deathbringer bowed and spread his wings.
“That includes you!” Glory yelled after him as he flew away. “Keep your claws to yourself!”
“Can’t hear you,” he called back cheerfully.
Winter glanced sideways at Moon and found her staring intently at one of the RainWing watchers.
“Um,” Moon said. “Your Majesty, can I ask —”
“Yes?” Glory said, waving her talons. “Speak up.”
“Just — even if they didn’t see an IceWing,” Moon blurted in a hurry, “anything suspicious — like something frozen or colder than usual …” She trailed off.
She knows that RainWing saw something, Winter guessed. She saw it in his head. But of course, she hadn’t told Queen Glory she could read minds yet.
“Well … there was this weird spot near the oldest giant banyan tree,” the RainWing scout mused, almost to himself. “I did notice something funny there.”
“What do you mean?” Glory asked him.
“There was a spot on the ground that was all shriveled up, kind of,” the RainWing answered. His scales were royal blue, dotted with little swirls of dark pink. “It looked like something had killed all the plants in a circle there, and they were kind of crusty and white-ish and the berries were as hard as rocks. Oh, and kind of cold, too. Do you think that’s important?”
Winter flared his wings. “Where was this?” he demanded. “How far away?”
“I know where the banyan tree is,” Glory said, already rising. She untangled Silver from her neck and deposited the sloth on a nearby branch. “We can be there in a few minutes. The rest of you, stay here.”
“Can’t I come, too?” Moon asked. “I can be useful. I —” She stopped, struggling for words. Winter realized that she was hoping her mind reading could help.
“Me too!” Kinkajou cried. “I want to come!”
“No,” Queen Glory said firmly. “I am your queen, both of you, and I’m ordering you to stay here.”
Winter wished he could insist on going by himself, but he needed someone to show him the way. And if he was perfectly honest … someone who could sense Icicle’s mind nearby would probably come in handy.
“Moon can come,” he said with what he hoped was an offhanded shrug. “That’s fine. Not her, though; she’s far too loud.” He jerked his chin at Kinkajou.
“I AM NOT,” Kinkajou protested. “That’s so unfair!”
“Kinkajou, you wanted me to be queen, and now you have to listen to me,” Glory said. “Stay here, because if you get killed by an IceWing, I’m going to be extremely mad at you.” She glanced from Winter to Moon, a wrinkle of puzzlement on her forehead. “But all right, Moon, come along.”
Soon the three of them were soaring through the trees. Well, trying to soar — Winter kept getting his wings tangled in unexpected vines or spiderwebs or branches or, once, snagged on the nest of a large-beaked indignant red bird.
After a few minutes of flying, Queen Glory stopped abruptly and swung around.
“That is a level of noisy that makes me think you aren’t even trying to be stealthy,” she said. “Come on out.”
Qibli emerged sheepishly from behind a tree with huge leaves. “I was trying to be stealthy,” he protested. “But there’s too many things to crash into. I’m a wide-open-desert kind of dragon.”
Winter shook off a tangle of moss and branches, disgruntled to realize he agreed with the SandWing about something.
“What did I say about staying put?” Glory asked.
“You’re a great queen, I hear, but with all due respect, you’re not my queen,” Qibli said, setting his jaw. “I go where they go. Besides, Winter wants me along, he just can’t admit it.”
“I don’t,” Winter said. “You can send him back to the Kingdom of Sand for all I care.”
“He adores me,” Qibli said.
Glory rolled her eyes. “Fine, enough arguing. Let’s go.”
Qibli shot Winter a delighted grin and flapped over to fly beside Moon. She was surprisingly dexterous at moving between the trees and dodging stray branches. Even Glory still ran into things occasionally, but Moon slipped easily through the forest, like a seal diving in the waves.
Soon they were descending toward an absolutely enormous fat tree with bulging branches and knobbly roots sticking out of the undergrowth. From the air, Winter spotted the circle the RainWing had mentioned. The frozen berries had melted into mushy puddles of purple, while the leaves and undergrowth were all black and damp.
But it wasn’t a neat circle — there were patches of green still left within the circumference of it. Which meant something had been blocking Icicle’s frostbreath in those spots.
Something … or someone.
Glory and Moon circled the tree while Winter and Qibli landed and studied the rainforest floor. A sharp headache was starting to work its way through Winter’s brain. He didn’t want this to be true. He wanted to find Icicle, but he didn’t want to find out that she’d done something else terrible.
The layers of leaves and bracken were disturbed here, as if something had been dragged away. Qibli noticed it, too; his snout wrinkled with concern. Winter followed the trail, trying to guess what he would have done in this situation.
Hidden the body. To give myself more time before I was caught. But she couldn’t have dragged it far. Maybe I’m just imagining the worst. Maybe she killed a rainforest boar … a really big one? … and dragged it off to eat. Maybe …
Winter paced over to a wall of bushes where the ground began to slope up. The banyan’s roots extended this far, some of them nearly as fat around as a dragon.
Between one of the roots and the bushes was a mound of leaves, dirt, moss, and mulch that looked too big to be natural.
His heart sinking, Winter started to clear away the debris. Moon and Qibli joined him, helping silently.
The corpse of a NightWing guard lay beneath the dirt in a hastily dug hollow, his face contorted in frozen rage, his throat slashed, and his scales ravaged by frostbreath.
Icicle was definitely here.
“Moons,” Glory muttered, staring over Winter’s shoulder at the corpse. Clouds of dark red were gathering along her wings and spine. “This is bad, Winter. Bad for your sister, bad for the peace of the rainforest.”
“The NightWings are going to set their heads on fire,” Qibli agreed. “No, wait. They’re going to set the closest IceWing’s head on fire. Winter, I hope your skull is as thick as it looks.”
Winter didn’t want to ask; he really believed that reading another dragon’s mind was wrong. But if it meant stopping Icicle before she did something like this again … and finding her before a vengeful troop of NightWings did …
He gazed at Moon until she looked up and met his eyes. He tilted his chin questioningly, and she shook her head. She couldn’t hear Icicle’s mind nearby.
“If Icicle sees you four, she’ll know you’re here to stop her,” Glory said. She gave Moon a worried glance. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
“And you,” Moon pointed out.
The queen snorted as though she was pretty sure she could handle anything, and led the way back to the royal pavilion.
“What happened?” Kinkajou yelped as soon as she saw them. She leaped up, her scales shifting into spirals of orange and lavender. “Did you find her? Uh-oh, Winter looks mad. Well, actually, that’s how he always looks. Is he mad? What happened?”
Deathbringer was there, too, stamping around making the platform shake and accidentally ripping flowers off the vines.
“By yourself?” he roared at Glory. “With three little dragonets to protect you?”
“Excuse me,” Winter objected. “Dragons my age are seasoned warriors where I come from. We guard the queen all the time in the Ice Kingdom.”
“Don’t get your tail in a knot,” Glory said to Deathbringer. Her sloth was already clambering up her tail onto her back again. “My top secret invisible guard was following us, too, and you know it.”
“But I wasn’t,” he protested.
She gave him an exasperated look. “You can’t always be,” she said in a low, surprisingly affectionate voice that suddenly made Winter rethink everything he had assumed about the queen and her bodyguard. “So calm down and trust me to take care of myself.”
“Says the dragon who got herself chained up in a lava prison,” Deathbringer muttered.
“The important thing is that we know the IceWing is here,” Glory said.
“She is?” Kinkajou squeaked. “Actually here? In the rainforest? Right this minute?”
Right this minute, Winter thought. She’s close by. His perfect, overachieving sister was somewhere in this damp mudhole, hiding from RainWings and planning a murder.
How far would she be willing to go? If Winter tried to stop her, would she kill one brother in order to save the other?
Don’t leave out the key adjectives in there. Kill one low-ranked, disappointing brother in order to save the long-lost hero with a bright future. That makes the equation a bit easier.
Glory’s tail lashed back and forth as she began issuing orders. “We need to organize teams to search, starting here and spreading outward. I also need you to come look at something for me.” She brushed Deathbringer’s tail lightly with her own.
To identify the body, Winter guessed. Before she tells the other NightWings what we found … so she can tell them who’s dead.
“As for you all,” Glory said, turning to Winter and Moon and Qibli, “I think the safest place is the dragonet wingery. It’s not far, it’s already well-fortified, and I’ll double the guard to protect you.”
“What?” Winter cried, flaring his wings. “You can’t lock us up with a bunch of new-hatched dragonets! I need to look for my sister!”
Glory shook her head. “I’m sorry, Winter. But if anything happens to you, the IceWings will declare war on us, and I wouldn’t blame them. Keeping you safe is the most important thing.” She hesitated. “I promise to let you speak with her when we find her.”
“Unless an overzealous NightWing kills her first!” Winter shouted. He lashed his tail furiously. “You can’t promise me you’ll keep her alive! I know how NightWings are — they’ll kill her the moment they see her!”
“I am their queen,” Glory said with steely ferocity, “and I will not let them do that.”
“She’s my sister!” Winter roared.
Warm claws stepped down hard on Winter’s back foot. He whirled around, snarling.
“Stop arguing with her,” Qibli whispered through his teeth.
“She’s not going to give in,” Kinkajou agreed. Behind her, Moon nodded, adding the weight of a mind reader to that opinion.
Glory was already turning back to Deathbringer and a pair of scout captains. Winter shoved Qibli away. He was not done fighting about this. There was no way he was going to sit quietly with a bunch of baby dragons while an enemy tribe chased down his sister.
“Listen,” Qibli hissed, shoving him back. “If you keep arguing, she’ll add even more guards. Just agree, and then we’ll sneak off. It’s the only way.”
Kinkajou’s eyes went wide and her scales turned an odd shade of yellowish-green. But Moon was nodding again.
“We’ll figure it out,” she agreed in a whisper. “We’ll make sure you’re the first one to find your sister.”
Winter ground his teeth together. He’d spent a lifetime being told what to do, but that was by other IceWings. No RainWing could order him around, and he didn’t have to listen to whispered advice from a SandWing either.
Mother and Father would want him to fight right now, he was sure of it. They’d wreck this pavilion and fight the entire tribe — both tribes — if anyone tried to stop them from hunting for Icicle.
But if he fought everyone now, Glory would see him as a threat, just like Icicle.
Whereas if he waited … and snuck off to search for her, as Qibli suggested …
It was horrible. Winter could almost see his ranking plummeting. Everything he’d ever worked for, vanishing as he bowed his head to obey a rainbow-bright dragonet, queen of the NightWings.
It’ll be worth it if I come back with Hailstorm, he told himself fiercely. Even if I’m the bottom-ranked IceWing for the rest of my life, saving Hailstorm would make all of this worthwhile.