Moon Rising, Page 4

  “Think outside the box, Moon. Look at her! I’m sure she’d love to be called Friendly. Let’s do that until we find out her real name,” Kinkajou said, and then broke down in helpless giggles.

  The SkyWing unfolded herself majestically and glared at Kinkajou with her wings spread wide.

  “I have fought in fourteen battles!” the SkyWing thundered. “No one giggles at me! Least of all a RainWing who can’t even read and knows nothing about war!” She jumped off her ledge and swept furiously out the door.

  There was a pause while Kinkajou got her giggles under control. “Ouch,” she said. “But mostly fair. Although I think being imprisoned and experimented on by NightWings and then injured during a royal challenge should give me some battle credit, don’t you?”

  “I — I think Clay said her name is Carnelian, maybe?” Moon offered.

  “Oh, that’s pretty,” Kinkajou said. “Do you mind if I take the hammock, by the way?”

  Moon shook her head. “The moss bed is all right with me.”

  “That’s what you slept on while you were growing up on the rainforest floor, right?” Kinkajou guessed, nodding. “This will be so great! We can bond over how much we miss papayas and adorable sloths! But I don’t miss anything yet; it’s too fabulous here. Come see the library!”

  “Oh,” Moon said nervously, “I — I think I’ll stay here for a bit longer — I need to just, um, um —”

  “Nonsense,” Kinkajou said. She poked one of Moon’s wings with her own. “We’re in a new place! This is really exciting! I want to show you everything!”

  Oh, I hope she’s not boring, Kinkajou’s mind whispered. I don’t mind shy; I can handle shy, but please don’t be boring.

  Moon straightened her shoulders and folded her wings back. It meant trampling down her terror, but she absolutely did not want to seem boring to her first possible chance at a friend here.

  “All right, let’s go,” she said, taking a deep breath.

  “Yay!” Kinkajou cried. She bounded out the door and Moon followed.

  As she stepped into the hallway, she heard it again … that bell of a voice in her mind.

  Oh, Moonwatcher, my new favorite dragon. This dragonet with her brain full of bubbles is not your only possibility. I believe you and I are destined for a great friendship.

  Moon shivered. Was it real?

  Was there a dragon somewhere reaching out to her? If so, how? And who was it? Another student? Was it a fellow NightWing, mysteriously hatched with the tribe’s long-lost powers, just like her?

  How could she hide from someone who knew exactly what she was?

  I can help you, the voice whispered. And better yet … you can help me.

  Moon couldn’t handle a mystery mind-voice and a new school full of noisy dragons all at the same time. She shoved her worries about the voice to the back of her head and tried instead to wrestle with the exhausting energy radiating off Kinkajou.

  “Where are we going?” Moon asked the RainWing as they headed along the tunnel, past all the sleeping caves, away from the Great Hall. She wondered if she should have brought her school map.

  “Today is an exploring day,” Kinkajou said with authority. “They want every day to be kind of an exploring day. That’s the idea of the school — find out what you’re interested in and explore it.”

  I’m interested in going back to my mother, Moon thought. Can I explore that?

  “They?” she echoed instead.

  “The dragonets of destiny,” Kinkajou said. “Although they don’t want anyone to call them that anymore, but what are we supposed to call them? The ‘founders of the school’ makes sense, too, I guess, but that makes them sound like they’re perfectly ancient, like old slabs of rock way under the mountain. I’m really good friends with them,” she confided as streaks of dark purple shot through her scales. “Especially Queen Glory, we’re practically best friends. They knew I wouldn’t be able to read the announcements everywhere — I mean, not yet! — so Sunny and Clay explained their whole plan to me ahead of time.”

  Announcements? Moon paused to look around and saw a small rectangular board made of dark rock hanging under one of the torches. A note was written on it in chalk:

  Welcome to the Jade Mountain Academy!

  Feel free to explore the whole school today (and every day!). Everything is for you. Food is available in the prey center. (Talk to Clay if you’d like to sign up for a hunting party!) Please come see any of us anytime with questions or requests or worries or anything.

  More information about tomorrow will be posted tonight. Small group-discussion classes will begin in the morning.

  Have a wonderful day!

  “What’s a small group-discussion class?” Moon wondered.

  “It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Kinkajou said. “Come on, come on!” She tugged on Moon’s wing impatiently, and the physical contact flooded Moon with Kinkajou’s radiant excitement.

  Kinkajou bounded up a side corridor lined with hanging scrolls; as she followed, Moon saw that each scroll had a quote on it. She didn’t have time to read them all, but she saw “Knowledge is a flame in the darkness” and “The claws of war are no match for the wings of wisdom.” At the end they turned into a space full of iridescent green sunlight.

  It was like stepping into a dream. Scrolls were everywhere, simply everywhere, in cubbyholes along all the walls and more racks and cylinders around the cave. Every corner had a spot to curl up and read in: sometimes a rock ledge, sometimes a pile of moss or an arrangement of carpets. Only one reader was in there: a quiet-looking MudWing with a scroll curled on some reeds. She didn’t look up as they came in; the only image Moon got from her mind was something like ripples on a mud puddle.

  Sunbeams filtered down through skylights in the roof and windows along one wall. Each of the holes was covered with something thin enough to let the light through but strong enough to keep the wind and weather out. Moon tilted her head back and studied the closest one: emerald green, with traces of veins branching through it.

  “Leaves,” she whispered.

  “Sunny and Glory got them in the rainforest,” Kinkajou said proudly. “We use them sometimes as roofs for our RainWing houses. Aren’t they perfect for library windows? Hi, Starflight!” She bounded over to a circular wooden desk in the center that was labeled librarian. A dark head popped up from behind the desk.

  “Hey, Kinkajou.” The blind NightWing leaned forward with a smile as Kinkajou brushed his claws with hers. “Is that Moon with you?”

  “Hi,” Moon said shyly. There was nothing ever hurtful in Starflight’s thoughts. His brain was always busy, busy, busy, but he never thought of her as “not a real NightWing” or “dangerous and untrustworthy.” He was like her, an outsider in his own tribe. And he liked scrolls, too. She could hear the back of his mind ticking through all the things he still needed to do to get the library completely ready.

  But he smiled in the direction of her voice. “Here’s your library stamp,” he said, sliding something out from under the desk. “I thought you might come by today.”

  “Library stamp?” Moon echoed curiously, taking it from him. It was a small rectangle of wood, as long as two claws, with her name carved backward in raised letters on one side.

  “We’re testing out a system,” he said. “I’ll show you.” He brushed his talons over a row of scrolls lined up under the desk. Moon spotted a name carved at the wooden end of each one, arranged alphabetically. Starflight touched them lightly until he felt hers, which he pulled out and partially unrolled. The scroll was completely blank.

  “When you want to borrow a scroll,” he said, “you bring it up to me here. Each one has a unique carved stamp on the end, like these do. I’ll stamp your name scroll with that end to show that you checked it out, and then when you bring it back, we stamp your card over the first image to show that it’s been returned. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so,” Moon said. She turned the stamp over in her
claws. She’d never had anything that was really her own before.

  “Can she have a pouch to keep it in?” Kinkajou asked.

  “Of course.” Starflight fumbled under the desk again for a few minutes, then pulled out a soft black leather pouch on a silver chain. Moon slipped the stamp inside the pouch and put the chain over her neck. It felt like her very first treasure.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Let me know if I can help you find anything,” he said. She heard a flurry of worried what-ifs start up in his mind, circling a well-worn track of anxiety about how to be a blind librarian. She also heard him firmly beat those worries back. He smiled in her direction again. “I’ve been practicing to get the whole space memorized.”

  Moon wondered how she could ask for what she really needed. Do you have any scrolls about ominous voices in your head?

  “Sora, are you still here?” Starflight asked, raising his voice a little.

  The MudWing by the windows lifted her head and nodded.

  “He can’t see you,” Kinkajou reminded her in a loud whisper. “Yes, she’s still here.”

  “Sorry,” the brown dragon said softly.

  “It’s all right,” Starflight said. The twinge of sadness in his thoughts didn’t spill into his voice. “Sora, this is Kinkajou and Moon. Sora is one of Clay’s sisters.”

  “Ooooo,” Kinkajou said. “How does it feel to be related to someone famous? Probably a bit like being best friends with a queen,” she answered herself, grinning ridiculously. “Which I am, just incidentally, so, I mean, I totally get it.”

  Sora’s smile was shy, and now Moon could sense tremors of anxiety in her that felt an awful lot like Moon’s own fears. Clay’s sister was as nervous about being here as Moon was.

  It was sort of reassuring, actually, to find someone as scared as she was.

  “Nice to meet you,” Moon said. Maybe she could be my friend, too. Maybe Mother was right … Maybe I will meet dragons I like here.

  “You too,” Sora nearly whispered, rolling her scroll between her talons.

  “Let’s go to the music wing next,” Kinkajou said. “Or, oooooo, I heard there’s an old GHOST living somewhere in Jade Mountain! Maybe we can find him!”

  Moon’s ears twitched. A ghost? Was she hearing the voice of a ghost? That would be … unsettling.

  “You’re talking about Stonemover,” Starflight said, “and he’s not a ghost. He’s Sunny’s father, and he’s a perfectly nice old NightWing who’s lived here for ages. He sleeps a lot and doesn’t need little dragonets sneaking up on him or pouncing on his tail to find out if he’s real. He does like company, though, so if you’re interested in a polite conversation with him, I can tell you how to find him.”

  “Polite conversation, YAWN,” Kinkajou said with a shrug of her wings. “You should tell everyone he’s a ghost. That would be much more exciting!”

  Not a ghost, but a real NightWing, Moon thought. Maybe he’s the one who can talk in my head. She’d have to ask Starflight for directions later, if she could work up the courage.

  “Are you hungry, Moon?” Kinkajou barreled on. “I might be hungry. We could find the prey center. I haven’t done that yet. Which way to the prey center, Starflight?”

  He touched his desk lightly, as if orienting himself, and then pointed at one of the three corridors that led away from the library.

  “Sora, you want to come?” Kinkajou asked before Moon could think to invite the dragonet herself.

  The MudWing shook her head quickly and buried her nose in her scroll again.

  “All right. See you soon!” Kinkajou called over her shoulder as they left.

  This passageway slanted back down and, Moon thought, out toward the open air. They passed a couple of branches, but Kinkajou barely glanced down them before continuing straight. After a few minutes, Moon caught the scent of living prey up ahead — and the jumble of several voices, both real-world and inside her head. Uh-oh.

  It was even worse than it sounded. The prey center was total chaos, the opposite of the serene, well-ordered library. It was a mammoth cave open to the air on one side, looking out over a mossy, boulder-strewn slope, towering cliffs, and faraway peaks. There was a low wall of rocks built across the bottom of the opening — useless against dragons, of course, but perfect for keeping prey trapped inside. A fast-flowing river swept along the wall opposite the opening, disappearing through an archway into the next cave.

  And there was prey all over the place. Shaggy, bleating sheep blundered helplessly under the dragons’ talons, yelling in panic. Several speckled-brown chickens, quail, and pheasants were racing around the floor, periodically bursting skyward in an explosion of feathers and squawks. In one corner, a fat black bear was squaring off with a dragonet twice its size, growling.

  Worse still, the cave was filled with shouting dragons. Most of them were MudWing, SandWing, and SkyWing dragonets who were gleefully trying to corner the rampaging chickens. They bellowed instructions at one another, yowled when the pheasants dodged them, and shrieked hilariously whenever birds nearly flew up their snouts. At the same time, their minds were all shouting, worrying, planning, reacting, and it felt to Moon like a hundred dragons talking at once.

  Clay, meanwhile, was standing on a tall boulder in the middle of the cave, trying to shout over all the noise.

  “Everyone stop moving!” he bellowed. “Especially you, chickens! CHICKENS, GIVE UP! WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU! THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT! STOP RUNNING AWAY RIGHT NOW!”

  “SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK!” the chickens shrilled back.

  Kinkajou spotted a small mountain of fruit piled near the river and darted over to it. Another RainWing dragonet was there, picking through the options, and Kinkajou shouted something cheerful at him.

  Moon hesitated, wishing she could sink right into the mountain and disappear. She was hungry, but it was so loud and horribly overwhelming in here. Maybe she could sneak back to her cave and wait to eat until the middle of the night. Surely it would be quieter then.

  But Kinkajou spotted her as she tried to sidle away. The RainWing flapped her wings wildly, beckoning, and finally Moon had to duck her head and sprint over, hoping not to get hit by any chicken parts on her way.

  “Moon, this is my friend Coconut,” Kinkajou said. Thought he was my friend shimmered through her mind, and Moon had a moment to wonder if Kinkajou did have a dark, bitter side after all, before Kinkajou added blithely, “At least, I thought he was my friend until I got abducted by bad guys for three weeks and he didn’t even notice I was gone.” She poked him pointedly with her tail.

  “Hmmm? Didn’t I say I was sorry about that?” Coconut mumbled around a mouthful of papaya. His scales were a kind of quiet lavender blue and his eyes were sleepy. “Or did I? Something like that.”

  “Mostly you say, ‘Hm, what?’ every time I bring it up,” Kinkajou said. She turned to Moon. “I’m going to learn to read eons before he does.”

  “Why is that?” Coconut asked mildly.

  “Because I’m smart and you’re not,” Kinkajou pointed out. “That was implied, Coconut. It was subtext.”

  “Right,” he said, not in the least offended, perhaps because he only seemed to be partially following the conversation. “The mangoes are pretty good,” he said to Moon. “I was told to eat them first because they’re all ripe. I like bananas better but mangoes are fine. I don’t particularly like coconut, though.”

  “Ironically,” Kinkajou said.

  “What?” he said.

  “See?” she said to Moon, grinning.

  Moon nodded, unable to speak through the cacophony inside and outside her ears. At least Coconut’s thoughts were slow and meaningless, although she thought she might go mad if she had to listen to them all day long. He passed her three mangoes, and she sliced them open with her claws, the way she’d taught herself to do when she was alone in the rainforest during one of her mother’s longer absences.

  “Whewf,” said a
voice behind her. Moon jumped and nearly dropped her mangoes in the river.

  “It’s just me,” Clay said to her kindly. “I’m glad you found Kinkajou. I thought you two would be a good match.”

  You did? Moon thought with bewilderment. She couldn’t see anything in common between herself and the bubbly RainWing.

  Clay shooed a chicken away from the fruit and glanced around the tumultuous cave. “So,” he said, “my plan hasn’t exactly gone as … planned.”

  “Clay, this place is MADNESS,” Kinkajou said with a laugh.

  “I know,” he said ruefully. “We’ll try something different tomorrow. I thought it would be fun to bring in live prey and let everyone chase it around. That’s what we did in our cave sometimes, growing up, when the guardians wanted us to practice hunting but wouldn’t let us go outside. But I guess it was a little more manageable with five dragonets than thirty-five.” He wrinkled his snout at the nearest panicking sheep.

  Kinkajou shook her head. “I say anyone who is gross enough to eat something that’s alive and wriggling deserves to get pecked. You should take those dragons out hunting with you and leave the rest of us here to enjoy our quiet sensible fruit in peace.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Clay said. “In the meanwhile, maybe I’ll get Tsunami and see if she can help me calm things down.” He gave Moon another reassuring smile and hurried out of the prey center.

  Moon heard the words quiet and peace and calm as if from a long way away. Through the raucous noise of the dragon minds around her, she could sense something running toward the cave — something like a small thread of pure terror, so tiny it could be blown away in a breeze, but so intense she couldn’t miss it, even in the howling gale of emotions in the prey center.

  Who is that, and why is their mind so strange? There were no words to go along with the emotions, and there was something fuzzy about it. Could it be a really young dragonet?

  She lifted her head and turned to watch for it — but as she did, a vast icicle of cold fury stabbed through her brain and she staggered back, crushing the mangoes in her talons with an involuntary convulsion. Bright yellow-orange pulp splattered all over Kinkajou and Coconut and the rocks around them.