Wings of Fire Book Three: The Hidden Kingdom (13 page)

Uh-oh
, Glory thought.

“But it better be good news,” said the SandWing, stomping around and heading into the fortress. “She doesn’t like hearing bad news, and we don’t like her hearing it either. Queen Glacier needs to figure that out and stop sending all these gloomy reports.”

Glory and Jambu exchanged glances and hurried after him. The door thudded shut behind them and another SandWing guard followed close on their tails. Slipping away was not going to be easy.

Blaze’s fortress was not much like the glorious, extravagant palaces of Queen Scarlet or Queen Coral. The halls here were narrow and nothing was open to the sky. A fireplace held a roaring fire in every room they passed, so the heat was almost stifling, and yet cold winds still rattled through the small windows. There was no trea sure adorning the walls, no gold or pearls embedded in the floor.

Instead, the stone walls were hung with thick woven tapestries. Each tapestry had a bright yellow sun blazing at the center of it, surrounded by patterns of images from the desert — sinuous lizards, prickly cacti, palm trees, camels. White and green and blue covered the dull gray walls almost from corner to corner.

They miss their home
, Glory realized, and was shocked to find herself feeling sorry for these SandWings. They’d come here to support Blaze — probably they’d fled alongside her when Burn tried to claim the throne — and now they were trapped in this icy world that was nothing like their own.

Kind of like growing up in a cave instead of a rainforest.

“Cool,” Jambu said. He pointed at a tapestry covered in rioting green lizards. “That one’s really wild. I like it.”

The SandWing soldiers stared at him. “Really?” said the one in the lead. “Our IceWing visitors usually make it pretty clear that they think our hangings are — how do they put it? — garish and gaudy.”

“Well, they’re not our style,” Glory said, stamping on Jambu’s foot. “But we can still appreciate the artistry.”

“Huh,” said the first SandWing. “Never heard that from an IceWing before.” He turned and kept walking. Glory shot Jambu a glare and he wrinkled his snout at her.

They reached the center of the fortress — or so Glory guessed, since there were no windows here — and stopped in a small antechamber outside a pair of giant wooden doors. One of the SandWings knocked twice and they all waited.

As the silence stretched out, Glory realized that there was something huddled in a corner of the little room. It looked like a dirty pile of prey fur at first, but when she peered closer, she realized there were two scavengers in there. They leaned against the wall with their arms around each other, shivering.

“What are those?” Jambu whispered to her, spotting them at the same time.

“You’re one of those IceWings who’s never left the queen’s palace, aren’t you?” guessed the second soldier, overhearing him. “I hear they rarely see scavengers that far north.” He prodded the furs with one sharp claw, and the two scavengers let out tragic little whimpers. “We found one of their hidden dens near the mountains and gathered up whatever we could catch. They’re faster than they look — we got only six of them, when there must have been at least twenty.” He shook his head. “These two are what’s left.”

“You’re going to eat them?” Jambu said.
Don’t sound so shocked
, Glory thought, lashing her tail. But she could understand what he was feeling. With their big eyes and strange arms wound around each other, the two scavengers looked like overgrown, less cute sloths. She couldn’t imagine eating them either. The thought made her feel weirdly queasy.

It didn’t help that one of them was staring at her in the same plaintive way Silver did when she didn’t want Glory to leave her behind.

“Of course,” said the guard. “We wreck any scavenger dens we can find and eat as many of them as we can. Glacier’s orders. She thinks one day we’ll find where they buried our trea sure.”

“If it still exists. Who knows what scavengers do with trea sure,” muttered the other guard. He knocked again, and this time the door swung open under his talon.

The room on the other side was larger than any they’d seen so far. The smooth stone floor was covered in sand, and the tapestries on the walls here were more intricate, with images of dragons and crowns and jewels surrounding the yellow suns.

Giant wine-red pillows and camel-hair carpets were piled in a loose nest in the middle of the room, and sprawled across this was a strikingly beautiful SandWing.

She had her chin propped on one talon and was gazing listlessly into a mirror on the sand in front of her. Her tail coiled gracefully across the pillows, with the poisonous barb touching the floor. Her wings were folded, and her scales shimmered like white gold against the red backdrop.

Blaze lifted her dark eyes and saw Glory and Jambu in the doorway. She forced a smile and reached her front talons toward them in a welcoming gesture.

“Oh, wonderful,” she said. “We haven’t had visitors in so long. I was hoping Queen Glacier would send us news.”

Glory bowed and Jambu imitated her. “If this is a bad time, Your Majesty, we can wait until later . . .”

“No, no, please come in,” Blaze cried. “Ocotillo, please bring us some tea. Oh, and some of those dried lizards if we have any left.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” said the first guard with a respectful bow. Both SandWing soldiers backed out of the room, leaving Glory and Jambu alone with Blaze.

I’m guessing it wouldn’t be this easy to get a private audience with Burn or Blister
, Glory thought. Blaze was not as cautious or suspicious as her sisters. But then, she had no reason to suspect a pair of IceWings.

“Is it about Queen Scarlet?” Blaze asked, leaning forward. “Did we find out if she’s dead? Are the SkyWings still following Burn? You know, if Glacier would let me go to the Sky Kingdom, I bet I could convince the SkyWings to switch alliances to us. I can be really convincing. Everyone likes me.”

Or they could throw you in prison
, Glory thought.
Or hand you over to Burn.

“I know what you’ll say,” Blaze said restlessly. “What Glacier always says. Stay put and let her handle things. I know all that military stuff is too confusing for me. But I think I could be useful with the talking part. Other dragons like hearing me talk.”

“I’m sure that is true, Your Majesty,” said Glory politely.

“So?” Blaze said. Her pitch-dark eyes were too eerily similar to Burn’s and Blister’s; they gave Glory the creeps, even though she knew a very different brain was behind them. “What’s your important message?”

Option one: Make up a lie.

Option two: Run for it.

Option three
.
.
. tell a version of the truth.

Glory took a deep breath. “The dragonets of the prophecy want to meet you.”

Blaze sat up fast. “
The
dragonets?” she cried. “Glacier found them?”

“They’re looking for you,” Glory hedged.

“Well, bring them here, bring them here!” Blaze said. “We can have a feast! Or a party! We haven’t had one of those in
forever
, because, you know, Queen Glacier disapproves of that kind of thing, but for something like this I’m sure we could! Oh, we’ll definitely need more dried lizards. We even have a pair of scavengers we could share! Maybe we should roast a camel — one of them’s a MudWing, right? He’d probably like that. We don’t have anything for SeaWings . . . maybe Queen Glacier can send us some fish, or a penguin, or do you think she’d like a walrus?”

“Wait,” Glory said. As tempting as a feast sounded — and she knew Clay would collapse with joy if he were offered a roasted camel — she wasn’t about to walk her friends back into another queen’s clutches. “There’s a catch. They’re not willing to risk coming inside. They need you to go meet with them.”

Blaze flung herself down on the carpets again, looking petulant. “But what about my
party
?” she said. “And I don’t
like
going outside. It’s too
cold
and it makes my scales all dry and ugly.”

“You won’t have to go far,” Glory said. Jambu was twitching in a weird, distracting way. She poked him with her tail. “And isn’t it worth it if the dragonets end up choosing you to be the next SandWing queen?”

Blaze worried one of her claws between her teeth, thinking.

Jambu poked Glory back and cut his eyes toward the far corner of the room. Glory squinted, but all she could see was sand and stone walls and tapestry.

Except . . . then the sand moved, and for the briefest moment, a pair of eyes blinked out of the wall, then vanished again.

Mangrove
is
here.

“I should wait for Queen Glacier,” Blaze said. “She wouldn’t like my going off alone. I’m sure she wants to meet the dragonets, too.”

Glory already did not like the sound of the IceWing queen. She’d bet that Glacier was exactly the kind of dragon who would love to lock up five dragonets.

“Actually,” Glory said, “she sent us to tell you that it’s a good idea. You should go ahead and meet with them, and you can tell her all about it afterward. There’s nothing to fear from the dragonets, and besides, um, Penguin and I will be there to protect you.”

“Oh,” said Blaze. “That is reassuring.” She gave Jambu a concerned look, and he managed to stop twitching for a moment.

“Do you think they’ll really choose me?” Blaze asked hopefully, turning back to Glory. “Oh, who am I kidding. I’m sure they will if they meet me! All right, I’ll do it.”

“Great!” Jambu burst out. “Let’s go!”

“Right
now
?” Blaze said. “Already?”

Glory wasn’t sure if that was a good idea either. Her friends weren’t exactly expecting Blaze to show up, and it would be hard to stay hidden from Deathbringer with the SandWing parading along beside them.

Still, this was what they wanted . . . a chance to meet the third queen candidate without risking imprisonment.

“Yup. Right now,” Glory said. She shot a significant look at Mangrove’s corner, hoping he’d be smart enough to follow them out.

Blaze picked up the mirror and checked her scales from several angles. Finally she swept one of the camel-hair blankets off the floor and flung it around her shoulders like a cape, then led the way to the door.

Jambu darted to the corner, grabbed a patch of sand, which turned out to be Mangrove’s elbow, and tugged him along after them.

Blaze started to turn around, but Glory was there to distract her. “Tell me about this tapestry,” she said, pointing to one with two large SandWing dragons flying across a blue background. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”

“Oh, that one was my idea,” Blaze said. “It’s the tragic, romantic story of how my brother fell in love with a dragon he knew our mother would never approve of, so he kept her hidden from us, but then she ran off and broke his heart, although we were all thinking,
Or did she
, of course, because it is so likely that Mother just found out and had her killed, which was something she would totally do. . . .” Blaze chattered on about the tapestry as she swept through the antechamber.

Glory glanced sideways at the two scavengers. The one with Silver’s eyes had fallen asleep and looked even more pathetic now.

Blaze was several steps ahead and not paying attention to anything but the sound of her own voice. Glory scooped up the sleeping scavenger and slid it onto her back. It did not smell very pleasant at all. No wonder the RainWings preferred fruit; bananas never smelled this bad. She folded her wings back over it, hiding it as well as she could.

Jambu saw what she was doing and grabbed the other scavenger. Even though it was awake, it barely struggled as Jambu tucked it under one wing.

They hurried after Blaze, following her back through the hallways to the main door. They went by a few SandWing guards; Blaze addressed them by name and they saluted, but she didn’t tell them where she was going and none of them looked suspicious or even curious. None of them paid any attention to Glory and Jambu, or to their poorly hidden stolen goods.

Almost every SandWing they passed was injured in some way. Blaze was unscathed, but all of her soldiers had scars slicing across their scales or missing talons or wounded tails. Glory thought of Dune, their SandWing guardian who had been so maimed by the war that he could never fly again. It had never occurred to her to ask him which side he had fought on before he joined the Talons of Peace.

A blast of cold air smacked them in their snouts as they stepped outside. Blaze wrapped her blanket around herself more tightly, lifted her claws gingerly out of the snow, and whined, “Are you
sure
the dragonets won’t come inside?”

Glory glanced back at Jambu. A shimmer in the air beside him was all she could see of Mangrove, but she was relieved to know he was there.

“That way, Your Majesty,” she said, nodding south.

Blaze heaved a sigh, spread her wings, and leaped into the air.

Quickly Glory twisted around and dragged the scavenger off her back. She dumped it on the snowy ground and it woke up with a yelp. Jambu dropped the other one next to it.