Darkness of Dragons, Page 30

  A gust of wind lifted a spray of sand and danced it across the dunes. Qibli set the stone he was carrying into its place in the wall and checked the sky. Dark blue and cloudless, as usual, as afternoon faded into evening. A few stars were already shining over the horizon and the moons were rising in the distance. Everything was calm. Nothing to worry about.

  “Time for a break,” Six-Claws called from the roof of the treasury.

  The SandWings around Qibli stretched and wandered off in search of water. The reconstruction work was almost done; everything Vulture, the Talons of Power, and Qibli’s sandstorm had done to the palace was nearly fixed.

  Qibli spotted Queen Thorn standing next to Six-Claws, as though she’d been there watching for a while. She said something to her general and then flew down to land beside Qibli.

  “Six-Claws says you’ve been working hard,” she said, handing him a flask of water.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said.

  “OK, enough of that,” she said. “Your talents are completely wasted on building walls. When are you going back to school?”

  “Don’t you need me here?” he said.

  “There will still be plenty to do after you are done with school,” she said firmly. “Are you hiding from someone?”

  That was a little too perceptive for Qibli to handle. “No!” he said quickly.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “Because the someone you’ve not been hiding from is here to see you.”

  “She is?” he said, flaring his wings. Queen Thorn gave him an amused glance and he realized he’d given himself away. “I mean, who? What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I told her to wait for you in the observatory,” Thorn said, nodding at the domed tower that was open to the sky. “If she can talk you into going back to school, I’ll give her some kind of SandWing medal of honor.”

  Qibli’s wings were trembling so much he wasn’t sure he’d make it all the way up to the tower. He took a few deep breaths, poured the water over his head to clean off the sand, and shook himself dry.

  Moon was peering into the telescope as he came through the hole in the roof.

  “This is amazing,” she said, turning to him with the brightest of smiles. “I can see craters on that moon! Are there any SandWing astronomy scrolls? Does this palace have a library? It must, right?”

  “It does,” Qibli said. “I can take you there if, um … if that’s why you’re here.”

  “No, no, it’s not,” she said. She crossed the room and was suddenly right in front of him, like he’d been imagining for weeks. What were all the clever things he was going to say? Why had they all flown out of his brain?

  “Please come back to school, Qibli,” she said. She took his front talons in hers. “We miss you. I miss you.”

  “Moon,” he said, looking down at the floor. “You should be saying this to Winter.”

  She paused. “Winter,” she said cautiously. “Why?”

  This part he’d prepared for. That didn’t make this any easier to say, but he was determined to try. “Because he needs you. He’d go back to school if you asked him. You make him a better dragon and I … I don’t know if he can live without you.”

  She studied his face. “I don’t know if that’s true, Qibli. I think he’ll be all right no matter what happens — he’s strong and smart and he’s going to do great things with his life. But I do know I need you.”

  That wasn’t in any of the possible scripts Qibli had practiced. He was startled into meeting her eyes. When she smiled, her teardrop scales became little rivulets of silver.

  “I want to be with someone who’s kind and makes me laugh and listens to me. That’s you. When I think about the future and everything I want to do with my life, I think about you. That’s what I know.”

  Qibli wasn’t sure his lungs were working properly, or maybe that was his heart trying to escape from his chest to fly around the room.

  “But —” he started.

  “No, no,” she said. She touched her claws to his temples. “I know your brain is shooting like a comet right now. Stop thinking about all the problems and scenarios and ways out. Just take a breath and look at me.”

  He did. Her eyes looked into him, and even with the skyfire hiding his thoughts, he knew she saw his whole self. And that was what she wanted, somehow, miraculously.

  “Can we try being together?” she asked. “Without a prophecy or a scroll or a catastrophe or a war or anything else crazy going on? Don’t overthink. Say yes.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  A smile spread across her face like a sunrise. “Awesome,” she said.

  “Awesome,” he agreed, smiling back.

  They stood there, smiling and feeling very silly, for a long quiet moment.

  “So,” she said, “I know I literally just said ‘without a prophecy or catastrophe or anything crazy,’ but … I’ve kind of been having a vision lately.”

  “Oh no,” he said with a laugh. “Another mysterious prophecy?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “But there’s something I need to check out. I was hoping you’d come with me?”

  “Anywhere,” he said. “Always.”

  They said good-bye to Queen Thorn, flew west through the night, and reached the coast before morning. Qibli had never been this far west; he’d never seen this edge of the Kingdom of Sand. He hadn’t quite thought about the surging ocean right at their doorstep, although he knew there were a few SandWing settlements along the water. But Moon didn’t take them in that direction; she turned north instead, toward the border with the Ice Kingdom.

  In a little cove north of the farthest northern oasis, they found what she was looking for: a small hut on the beach, roofed with palm fronds.

  Qibli glanced at Moon in confusion as they landed on the damp sand in front of it. “Who lives here?”

  “Someone I saw in my vision, I think,” she said. “If I’m right, Turtle saw her, too, just for a moment, in Darkstalker’s throne room. He told me about it — but he said he wasn’t sure she was real. I think she is, and I think we’ll find her here.”

  As she said that, the door opened and a SandWing emerged. She was tall and long-necked and graceful, with wide black eyes and a dappled brown triangle pattern on her wings. She watched them gravely as they climbed the beach toward her.

  “Hello,” Moon said, dipping her head to the stranger. “My name is Moon and this is Qibli. Did you know we were coming?”

  “I knew someone would come,” she said in a quiet voice. “I guessed it would be soon.”

  “What’s your name?” Moon asked. “I saw you in a vision, but I don’t really know why.”

  “I’m Jerboa,” said the SandWing.

  Qibli’s eyes widened, and she noticed and shook her head. “Not the original Jerboa,” she said. “Her daughter.”

  “From way back in Darkstalker’s time?” Qibli asked.

  “Yes. My mother cast a spell to make sure nothing could ever harm me.” Jerboa shrugged. “I’ve been waiting a long time to fulfill my purpose.”

  “Your purpose?” Moon asked.

  “Yes,” Jerboa said again. She spread one wing to invite them into the hut. “I believe the first step is introducing you.”

  “To who?” Qibli asked, stepping inside. He edged sideways to make room for Moon to enter, too, and his eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark interior.

  There was an injured dragon in there, lying on a bed of palm fronds. She sat up as they entered and eyed them warily.

  And then Qibli saw the shape of her wings, and her face, and the color of her scales, and he realized this dragon was no hybrid. She was not from any tribe he’d ever seen before.

  She was something completely different.

  “What —” Moon whispered. “How —?”

  “I believe this,” said Jerboa, “is our first visitor from the lost continent.”

  TUI T. SUTHERLAND is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestsel
ling 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 adorable sons, and one very patient dog. To learn more about Tui’s books, visit her online at www.tuibooks.com.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Tui T. Sutherland

  Map and border design © 2017 by Mike Schley

  Dragon illustrations © 2017 by Joy Ang

  Cover art © 2017 by Joy Ang

  Cover design by Phil Falco

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are 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, August 2017

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-68549-8

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