Dangerous Gift

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “Whew,” she said into the cloud of glittering ice dust around her. “That’s better.”

  “But — but —” Tundra cried. Snowfall realized that Lynx was standing between them, wings spread, to stop Tundra from charging at Snowfall again. Tundra seemed unable to move at the moment, though. She was staring at the space where the wall had been as though she thought it might magically rebuild itself if she stared hard enough.

  Can it do that? Snowfall gave the broken bits of ice a hard stare of her own. They stayed where they were; no sign of any magical rebuilding. Don’t even try it, ancient ice wall.

  As the echoes died away, Lynx started clapping. Mink immediately joined in, beaming, although Snowfall suspected she just loved clapping and didn’t entirely understand the enormity of what Snowfall had done.

  I just smashed centuries of tradition into literal pieces, she thought, feeling a little dizzy.

  But then another IceWing started to clap, and another, across the courtyard. Snowfall saw a few more at their windows applauding, although she also saw some older dragons duck out of sight when she looked, as though they didn’t want to be caught with disapproving expressions on.

  It’s all right. Eventually they’ll see that it’s better this way.

  “The gift of order,” Tundra said faintly, and then she collapsed into the snow.

  Snowfall beckoned two of her guards over and told them to carry Tundra gently to her room and stay until she recovered, in case she needed anything.

  “This is so exciting!” Mink said to Snowfall, scrambling over and sitting on her foot. “What else can we break? Can I smash something next?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Snowfall said, resting one wing around her sister. “I’ll let you wear my tiara and everything. Tonight I think I need to have some ice cream and go to sleep.” Snowflakes were drifting from the gray sky, covering everything in quiet sparkles.

  “I love it when I’m right,” Lynx said.

  Snowfall bristled at her. “Who said you were? Maybe I smashed it for my own reasons! I have many opinions that have nothing to do with you!”

  Lynx gave her a sideways grin.

  “What?” Snowfall said. “Did you mean something else? Right about what?”

  Lynx flicked her tail gently at Snowfall’s wings. “About you being the best queen ever, Madame Spiky Face.”

  “Oh.” Snowfall resettled her spikes and nodded regally. “Yes. Well. That is the plan.”

  She opens her eyes.

  She is standing in the Forbidden Treasury. She can’t see a light globe anywhere, but the niches glow pale blue and the walls glimmer as though icy fireflies are swimming through them.

  She is herself. She is Queen Snowfall. She feels that she is, but she holds her talons out and turns them over, just to be sure. The opal ring is still there, on her claw. She took off everything else before bed, though — the tiara and all her weapons. This is her palace, she is the queen, and she decided she wasn’t going to be afraid all the time anymore.

  But … she is having a vision, isn’t she? How can she be having a vision of herself?

  “Because this is the last one,” says a voice behind her.

  Snowfall turns. An IceWing is standing there, next to the empty niche labeled GIFT OF VISION. Even in the weird light, Snowfall can see that she has unusual scales, like there’s a hint of another color beyond the white in each one.

  Like an opal.

  The dragon smiles. “That’s me. Opal. Nice to meet you, Queen Snowfall.”

  Snowfall gives her a wry look. “I have a feeling I’ve been yelling at you for the last several days.”

  Opal shrugs her wings elegantly. “No more than any of the queens who used the ring before you.”

  “Have there been a lot?” Snowfall asks. “Does every queen put it on at some point?”

  “Not every one,” Opal answers. “It’s enchanted to appear to those who need it most.”

  Snowfall regards the ring for a moment. “So I needed it because … we had to find out what was happening in Pantala? And make a connection with the scavengers, so they’d help us defeat Queen Wasp?”

  Opal laughs. “I’m glad you used it so well,” she says. “But no. It’s for dragons who become queen before they are ready, to help them take steps toward becoming even stronger queens.”

  Snowfall raises an eyebrow at her. “That’s a polite way of putting it,” she says. “But you mean it’s for queens who are a total mess, to teach them to see the world through other dragons’ eyes, so they won’t be so selfish. Isn’t that it?”

  “We don’t say that part out loud!” Opal admonishes her, but she’s clearly hiding a smile. “And you weren’t a total mess.”

  “Are you really here?” Snowfall asks. “In the Forbidden Treasury? Just wondering how to find you so I can throw you in my dungeon forever.”

  Opal laughs again. “No, I died a long time ago — I created my one animus gift, and then had a long happy normal life as an IceWing. I just left a bit of my spirit in the ring to keep track of the visions and have this last conversation when the ring has finished its work.”

  “I can’t believe your original queen agreed to this,” Snowfall says, holding up her talon with the ring on it.

  “She fully did not,” Opal says. “Why do you think I made the enchantment the way it is? She became queen before she was ready, too, and she was so scared and furious all the time. She asked me for an animus gift that would let her spy on all her enemies — both outside the kingdom and inside her own tribe. I made her this instead.”

  “Wow.” Snowfall touches the opal lightly with one claw. “I can’t believe she didn’t execute you the moment she realized she couldn’t take it off. That’s probably what I would have done,” she adds ruefully.

  “No, you wouldn’t have,” Opal says with certainty. “You would have thrown me in the dungeon, like she did. And then after a few weeks, if the ring worked the way I enchanted it to, you’d have forgiven me, like she did.”

  “A few weeks?” Snowfall lifts her chin proudly and sweeps her tail across the floor. “I learned all my vision lessons in just a few days.”

  “Maybe you were closer to ready than even you realized,” Opal says.

  Snowfall looks down at the ice below her feet and hesitates for a moment. “What if — what if I’m not sure I am ready?” she asks. “Maybe I need a few more visions.”

  “No,” Opal says. “The ring is magic; it knows exactly how much you need. There’s just one more you have to see.” Suddenly she is standing right in front of Snowfall, and she rests her talons on Snowfall’s temples.

  And then

  Snowfall is

  not Snowfall anymore

  but her mother instead.

  Queen Glacier is flying in from a meeting with Blaze, thinking about what a cheerful brain-dead goose that SandWing is. Below her in the courtyard, she sees dragonets playing, and she lands on one of the upper ledges to watch them.

  Three of them are her daughters: Crystal, Snowfall, and tiny Mink, who tries to keep up with the other two but keeps getting stuck in snowbanks. They’re playing some kind of made-up game; Glacier can’t figure out the rules from up here, but it involves a lot of running and defending particular corners of the courtyard, and snowballs are flying everywhere.

  Mink tumbles into another pile of snow and Snowfall grabs her, lifting her to sit on Snowfall’s back. “Come on, we can’t let them win!” she shouts. She hurtles across the courtyard at ferocious speed, even with Mink clinging to her shoulders, and tackles one of the other IceWings before he can throw a snowball into her corner. She rolls over him, slides him back toward his team, bowling two of them over when he crashes into them, and leaps up with her wings spread wide to block another snowball from another direction.

  Back in the middle of the courtyard, Crystal is standing still and yawning. “Is it time for lunch yet?” she calls.

  “No!” Snowfall shouts back, fending off another snowball and f
linging one of her own into her opponent’s face. “After this you’re going to quiz me on my kingdom geography, remember?”

  Crystal sighs elegantly and wanders over to the nearest bench. “If you say so.”

  The sun warms Glacier’s wings as she watches them. Her three perfect dragonets. Crystal’s serenity, Mink’s affectionate loveliness, and Snowfall’s indomitable ferocity. She loves them so much.

  She’s already decided she won’t fight them for the throne. Whichever one decides to challenge her first, she’ll step aside and let them have it.

  She hopes it’s Snowfall. She loves them all, but Snowfall will fight for this kingdom like nobody else will. She has some growing up to do first, and Glacier hopes to pay more attention to her after the war is over … but even now, watching her, Glacier can see what a great queen Snowfall could be.

  Being queen is not easy. Glacier is often exhausted, frustrated, confused, uncertain; she worries for her tribe all the time, and she has inexplicable nightmares about NightWings. She has to work hard to seem confident in front of the tribe.

  The crown would be too much for Crystal or Mink; it would crush them. Glacier knows perfectly well that the same is true of Blaze and the SandWing throne, but she plans to be a strong ally to help her hold it, if Blaze can get herself together and win the war.

  But Snowfall is strong enough to rule a kingdom and do it well. Glacier is sure of it. Snowfall earns her place at the top of the dragonet side of the wall, day after day, and she struggles and cares and tries and fights, and that’s who the IceWings need.

  We’re going to be all right, Glacier thinks, feeling her shoulders relax for the first time in a while. Watching Snowfall fills her with hope. No matter what happens, I’ll be able to leave the tribe in the right talons.

  The courtyard fades away.

  Snowfall wipes the tears from her snout.

  “Thank you,” she says to Opal.

  “I just made the magic,” Opal says with another shrug. “You had to walk the visions.” She holds out one talon. “And now you’re done.”

  “Shouldn’t I keep it a bit longer?” Snowfall asks. “So I can see what happens to the dragons who are going to Pantala?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Opal says. “The gift of vision serves its purpose, and then it disappears again, until the next dragon comes along who needs it.”

  Snowfall slides the ring off. She can’t believe how easily it moves, after all those days of wrestling with it. Now it feels too big again, wobbling around her claw. She gives it to Opal, who puts it back in the empty niche. Dark ice slides across the hole, and the words gift of vision vanish, until the ring is completely hidden.

  “Good luck,” Opal says with a smile.

  * * *

  Snowfall woke up late in the morning. She’d finally had a real night’s sleep in the royal bed, despite the tiny snuggle monster who’d climbed in beside her during the night. Mink was still asleep, one wing flopped over Snowfall’s snout.

  The ring was gone, which didn’t surprise her. Stupid magic, she thought, but didn’t really feel. She would miss the visions, she realized. A little bit. She preferred being herself, always Snowfall, but it felt oddly empty to think she’d never get to walk in someone else’s talons again.

  Mother believed in me after all. She didn’t just choose me because she couldn’t have Crystal. She thought I was the right choice.

  Snowfall moved Mink’s wing off her face and rolled out of bed. Outside the window, the sun was up and IceWings were darting through the sky, each one catching the light like a flying star. Beyond them, Snowfall could see the ocean, all that moving, glittering water between here and the lost continent of Pantala. Lynx was out there somewhere, flying to meet the rest of the dragons whose talons held the fate of the world.

  I hope they survive. They BETTER survive or I’m going to be SO FURIOUS at them.

  I hope they stop Queen Wasp and the breath of evil. I hope I see Sky and Wren again … and Sundew and Cricket and all the rest of them.

  I hope we’re doing enough to save the world.

  Raven crept through the tunnel, listening for any sign she was being followed, but she couldn’t hear anyone behind her. The darkness pressed in like panther fur, brushing the hairs on her arms. But she knew the path to the abyss well enough to navigate without sight — and as she got closer, she could see the dim green glow that came from its depths.

  She could also see the skeletal figure that huddled by the edge of the glow. He crouched so close to the terrifying drop, it made Raven dizzy. He didn’t turn toward her. His eyes were always fixed on the chasm.

  “Vole,” she whispered. “I brought you food.” She set her little bundle down as close to him as she dared, then stepped back out of reach.

  It had been a long time since Vole threw someone into the abyss, but that was most likely because no one else dared to approach him anymore. Only Raven, who came even though it was forbidden, and his brother, Mole, who was allowed to keep him alive but never allowed to speak of him.

  “Can you hear it?” Vole said in his shivery rasp of a voice. He still didn’t look at her. He never did.

  “I think so,” Raven said, sitting on one of the rock formations. “I mean, I hear something, but I don’t know what it’s saying. Do you?”

  The whispers reached the upper caves, winding like long clinging spiderwebs around the people of the village. She knew they could hear it, too, from the way they flinched or hunched their shoulders or hurried away from one another. But no one would talk about it except Vole.

  “It’s growing,” he said softly. “It’s reaching. Soon it will be now. But it needs …” He trailed off.

  “Needs what?” Raven asked.

  Suddenly Vole whipped his head around and met her eyes for the first time in years. Raven jumped and nearly fled back into the dark. His eyes were nothing like they’d been when he was just her friend’s funny older brother. Now they were haunted and overlaid with a green shimmer, and they seemed to look right through her.

  “It needs a dragon,” he hissed.

  “A dragon?” Raven curled her fingers around the rough edges of the stone below her. “Any dragon?”

  She wanted to run away screaming. But if something was changing in the abyss, Vole would be the only one who could tell her, and she had to know.

  “You must find the dragon,” Vole said, and now his voice was like the crawling cave centipedes, thousands of them, with millions of scuttling legs crossing her skin. “Bring it the dragon. Save the village.”

  “Wait,” Raven said as he turned back toward the abyss. “What does that mean? Save the village? From what?”

  “Find the dragon,” Vole said, leaning toward the glow. “Bring it here.”

  He let out a long, slithering breath that twined around the whispers from below.

  “Or everyone you know will die.”

  TUI T. SUTHERLAND is the author of the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling Wings of Fire series, the Menagerie trilogy, and the Pet Trouble series, as well as a contributing author to the bestselling Spirit Animals and Seekers series (as part of the Erin Hunter team). In 2009, she was a two-day champion on Jeopardy! She lives in Massachusetts with her wonderful husband, two awesome sons, and two very patient dogs. To learn more about Tui’s books, visit her online at www.tuibooks.com.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Tui T. Sutherland

  Map and border design © 2018 by Mike Schley

  Dragon illustrations © 2021 by Joy Ang

  Cover art © 2021 by Joy Ang

  Cover design by Phil Falco

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  This book is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidentsare either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  First printing, March 2021

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-21456-7

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