The Silken Seer

Chapter 3

On her way home from Gossamer Academy, Clearwing thought about her dreams.

Over the past few days, they had been more and more realistic, as well as longer and longer. More time before the fire, a lot of time in the aftermath, and a lot more details. Last night, it was like she was actually there, actually surrounded by flames. When she woke up in the late morning, it was as though her wingbuds had caught on fire. It suddenly struck her that her metamorphosis was in a few days. She shook herself and shakily walked over to one of her favorite levels of the Hive; the Bloodworm Gardens.

Paths spiraled around and around in swirling patterns, and perfectly-aligned flowers on the sides of the path were arranged into perfect stripes of gold and pink and blue and green and black and red.

Looking around, she spotted Coal on a hill with a book of some sort. Clearwing padded over the soft grass, sitting down next to him. It turned out that the book was of Hive architecture — specifically Wasp Hive's architecture. There was a lot of empty space at the bottom of the map, which the author had creatively titled "Storage".

Coal pointed at it. "There," he said, "That's where she's keeping them. It must be — we just need to find the right warehouse." She knew instantly that he was talking about the flamesilks imprisoned by Queen Wasp.

"How do we do that?" Clearwing asked. "We can't get to Wasp Hive without a bunch of paperwork, and even then Lady Bloodworm might deny our travel request."

"So we sneak out," he said sheepishly. He had said that multiple times over the last few days, probably thinking it was a good idea to try despite the fact that it most definitely wasn't.

"If we get caught, the guards will kill us both," she said. "This is treason we're talking about, Coal. And what are we even doing this for? A couple of dragons hidden away somewhere, spilling silk out of their wrists? They probably don't even realize anything is wrong."

Clearwing sighed, walking to the nearby platform. She laid down on the edge, looking out at the savanna. It was a calm day, with animals trodding across the continent in no particular direction. Clouds lazily floated across the sky, contrasting the bland color of the savanna. She looked back at Coal, but suddenly his eyes were wide and staring at something on the savannah behind her.

"Clearwing!" Coal yelled. He looked down. "Clearwing, who is that?"

Startled, the SilkWing dragonet whirled around, peeking over the edge of the Hive. Below, she could see at least fifteen LeafWings. But two of them were doing something strange. She was suddenly hit with deja-vu, but she couldn't quite remember why.

"What is she doing?" Clearwing pointed to a gold-and-green LeafWing who was smiling wickedly as plants grew up the walls of Bloodworm Hive way faster than plants should ever grow. Her heartbeat increased. LeafWings.

Something very, very, very bad was about to happen.

"I don't know, didn't some of the scrolls say LeafWings could control plants?" Coal's sentence was calm, but his voice was shaking.

Clearwing suddenly got the very distinct impression that she should scream to someone for help.

"And who is that?" Coal asked, confusion etched across his face.

There was a dragon next to the gold-and-green tree dragon. On closer inspection, she wasn't even a LeafWing.

"That's a SilkWing!" Clearwing cried. "She's a flamesilk! She's burning the Hive for them!!"

Coal let out a murmur of surprise as he spotted the pale green-and-yellow dragon. She didn't look as pleased as the green and brown dragons around her — in fact, she seemed more ruthlessly determined than gleeful. The SilkWing watched the fire blossom out of her wrists with an expression that was both defiant and hopeful.

It was all very strange, Clearwing decided.

She blinked, somewhat slowly, and then suddenly everything was on fire. Dragons screamed and the flowers in the garden wilted. The roars of HiveWing guards sounded from below, and Clearwing felt the world tip sideways. Smoke filled her vision and she coughed, trying not to breath it in.

That was when Coal gently tugged on her arm.

"Get up," he said. "Come on, Clearwing. We need to get out of here."

Clearwing took his talon and let him pull her up. The Hive was burning. SilkWings and HiveWings alike ran from the blaze, their faces twisted into looks of fear and terror and anger and fury as LeafWings emerged from the burned holes in the floor. Plants bursted from the ground, burning and spitting flaming oil and sending tendrils of thick smoke at the fleeing dragons.

This is my dream, she realized. This is it. This is my nightmare come true.

"Where do we go?" she asked.

"I don't know, but whatever we do, we can't stay here," Coal said. A LeafWing lunged for him at lightning speed, but Coal was faster, hitting them with his tail and giving them a small burn with his own fire. Clearwing glanced ruefully at her wingbuds, as if hoping they would turn into wings if she stared at them long enough.

Another LeafWing — this one a shade of mahogany brown with speckles of white along his wings — barrelled into the SilkWing dragonet.

Clearwing screamed, but Coal was too slow to react. He was still looking at his attacker.

There was nothing she could do. Before she could even get another word out, she and the LeafWing were falling through one of the holes in the treestuff floor, to the ground much too far away.