One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

33.

Content warning: hostage situations, political conflict, discussion of the SeaWing massacre and trauma in general, discussion of war, self-loathing

***

Eclipse

I wake up in a large tent, beside a round wood table. There's a dull ache at the back of my skull, and my arm is really sore.

"Mom?" I murmur, voice hoarse—as though I've been asleep for quite some time. "Dad?"

"We should kill her right now!" A gruff female voice declares, banging her fist on the table. I wince--from a pain perspective, she may as well have banged her fist directly on my skull. "She could be an animus for all we know; and even if she isn't, the version of the animus gene in Darkstalker's family is clearly much stronger than anything we've seen in a long time; they've had three straight generations of magic--and rumours of a fourth. I want her head on a pike by morning, so Darkstalker knows we mean business."

Queen Carmen. I'm starting to remember, now.

Oh no.

I'm right at the heart of the alliance.

My heart skips a beat. There are three guards at each exit point--three SeaWing, three SkyWing, three IceWing, all armed with very scary-looking spears. I glance down at my talons, finding them weighted down by heavy silver shackles; strangely not attached to anything. But they'll make moving far harder; even if I did stand a chance with no weapons against twelve hostile dragons three times my size, and more waiting outside. And my wings have been clamped closed, so flying is out of the question.

"You're a fool, Carmen," a slippery, slightly rasping voice declares. Snowfox. I clench up my talons into fists, thinking of everything this dragon has done to my family. (Our family, technically.) If it weren't for her, my grandmother would still be alive.

Maybe she had reasons, I remind myself. Maybe she's a perfectly reasonable dragon.

Even I'm having trouble buying that right now.

"As a general rule? Hostages are of far more value alive. You have no idea what secrets that pretty little head might hold, and you'd be an idiot to throw away your chance of learning them by mounting her head on a pike. Give me a few months, and I bet I can have her fighting on our side. She is part IceWing, after all."

I'll never fight for you, I want to shout. But I don't.

In part, because I might not get another chance to listen in on the queens while they think I'm still out cold—and in part, because after what Sharp-eyes did to me... maybe she's right.

"I really don't appreciate how you're talking about my hostage like she's our hostage," a high, bubbly voice declares, holding up her talon. Queen Pearl. She looks... a lot older than in the portraits; with bags under her eyes and crisscrossing scars across most of her body, just like my parents. I wonder how she got them; from what I've heard she's not the type to lead her tribe into battle. And if it was an artistic choice or her demand that they be left out of the paintings. "Did your mom never teach you finders keepers? Because in my kingdom—"

Snowfox groans. "Queen Pearl," she says, in a tone suggesting fantasies of ripping out her ally's throat. "I don't know if you remember, but this is an alliance—your resources are our resources, to be given to the queen who can use them most efficiently. Which is me! Just give me the princess, and I can win this war."

"No way!" Pearl declares. "She's mine, and I can handle her perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much. This discussion is over."

"Oh, so we're not sharing resources anymore?! Going back on all our promises?!" Carmen scoffs. "Great, then I guess we'll all stop planning battles together too, and just function as an alliance of three separate, uncoordinated—"