The Dragonet Prophecy Read Free

destiny.
    “All right,” Kestrel said dismissively. “We’re finished here anyway. I’ll mark another failure in your scroll, MudWing.” She snorted a small flame into the air and swept out of the cave.
    Clay flopped down on the floor as soon as her red tail had vanished from sight. It felt like every one of his scales was stinging from the burns. “She’s going to be so mean to you during your training tomorrow,” he said to Tsunami.
    “Oh, no,” the SeaWing dragonet gasped. “I’ve never seen Kestrel be mean before! That’ll be so unexpected and out of character!”
    “Ow,” Clay groaned. “Don’t make me laugh. I think my ribs are broken.”
    “Your ribs are not broken,” Tsunami said, poking him in the side with her nose. “Dragon bones are almost as hard as diamonds. You’re fine. Get up and jump in the river.”
    “No!” Clay buried his head under his wing. “Too cold!”
    “Jump in the river” was Tsunami’s solution for everything. Bored? Aching bones? Dry scales? Brain overstuffed with the history of the war? “Jump in the river!” she’d shout whenever any of the other dragonets complained. She certainly did not care that she was the only one who could breathe underwater or that most other dragon tribes hated getting wet.
    Clay didn’t mind being wet, but he couldn’t stand being cold, and the underground river that flowed through their cave home was always freezing.
    “Get in,” Tsunami ordered. She seized his tail between her front talons and started dragging him toward the river. “You’ll feel better.”
    “I will not!” Clay shouted, clawing at the smooth stone floor. “I’ll feel colder! Stop it! Go away! Argh!” His protests went up in a cloud of bubbles as Tsunami dumped him in the icy water.
    When he resurfaced, she was floating beside him, ducking her head and splashing water over her scales like a beautiful overgrown fish. Clay felt like a gawky brown blob next to her.
    He sploshed into the shallows and lay down on a submerged rock ledge, with his head resting on the bank of the river. He wouldn’t admit it, but the burns and aches did feel better in the water. The current helped wash away the smoky rock dust caught between his dry scales.
    Still too cold, though. Clay scratched at the rock below him. Why couldn’t there be just a little mud down here?
    “Kestrel will be sorry one day, when I’m queen of the SeaWings,” Tsunami said, swimming up and down the narrow channel.
    “I thought only a queen’s daughters or sisters could challenge her for her throne,” Clay said. Tsunami swam so fast . He wished he had webs between his talons, too, or gills, or a tail like hers, so powerful she could nearly empty the river with one big splash.
    “Well, maybe the SeaWing queen is my mother and I’m a lost princess,” she said. “Like in the story.”
    Everything the dragonets knew about the outside world came from scrolls picked up by the Talons of Peace. Their favorite was The Missing Princess , a legend about a runaway SeaWing dragonet whose royal family tore up the whole ocean looking for her. At the end she found her way home, and her parents welcomed her with open wings and feasting and joy.
    Clay always skipped the adventures in the middle of the story. He just liked that last part — the happy mother and father. And the feasting. The feasting sounded pretty great, too.
    “I wonder what my parents are like,” he said.
    “I wonder if any of our parents are still alive,” Tsunami said.
    Clay didn’t like to think about that. He knew dragons were dying in the war every day — Kestrel and Webs brought back news of bloody battles, scorched land, and burning piles of dragon bodies. But he had to believe his parents were still safe. “Do you think they ever miss us?”
    “Definitely.” Tsunami flicked a spray of water at him with her tail. “I bet mine were frantic when Webs stole my egg. Just like in the story.”
    “And mine tore apart the