One True Queen: A Wings of Fire fanfiction

52.

content warning: claustrophobia, some unsettling descriptions. sharp-eyes.

Epiphany

We stand at the edge of Sharp-eyes's barrier. And our deaths, probably.

I look up, trying to see the end. It's just like that drawing Scorpion showed us, a swirling black bubble stretching up toward the sky, so massive it's hard to comprehend.

A chill creeps down my spine.

Way and Precocious exchange a glance. I clear my throat. "Gaze?" I ask.

My friend closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She lifts her wings, as though bracing herself. Her eyes snap open, glowing silver.

"Gaze?" I ask again, hesitantly reaching out to touch her wing. "What do you see?"

Her voice is strange and otherworldly—but calm. Clear. "I see—a kingdom made of stone, carved into the canyon." Her voice catches. "Keeping idle talons busy. I see—" She gasps, almost falling. Way hesitates, then helps her get back up, ever-so-gently. "I see—a dragonet. I know that one. I know that one—and I see—an empty box, and they're both inside, and—"

Tears pool in her eyes. The silver glow vanishes, and she slumps into the dirt. I lean over her.

Is she, like, dead or something?

I've never seen a seer have a vision before.

No, she's still breathing. She's okay.

Good.

"I did it." She coughs into her wing, laughing, a smile spreading across her snout. "I did it! Oh my gosh! And I was in control! I could turn it off! I've... never done that before." A smile tugs at her mouth.

She pushes herself up off the ground, her breaths still uneven, and rushed. "I don't totally understand what I saw. But I do definitely know that the barrier isn't going to kill us. And that there are still living dragons in there."

"Really?" I ask.

"I'm sure of it."

I offer a talon, helping heave her up off the ground.

"You seem... clear," I observe, looking her up and down. "Steady."

Gaze glares down the barrier.

"Together?" She asks, exchanging a glance with me. Our wings brush.

I barely know her. But she's tough, in an odd way, she's kind—even when she's not. I trust her, more than most anyone.

"Together," I say softly.

***

I squeeze my eyes shut on instinct as I run into the barrier. It's stupid, really. If this is the kind of darkness in which monsters hide, then I should be ready.

I open my eyes, and find it doesn't make much of a difference. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. Black, sticky, ever-moving goo clings to my scales and trapping me in place.

"Way? Precocious? Gaze?!" I shout. My lungs burn as I gasp for air.

Gaze promised this wouldn't kill us, I remind myself. I grit my teeth. Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. But the mantra doesn't stop my heart from racing, the world from spinning—

When I was a dragonet, my family would head to the river to escape the summer heat, and I used to love trying to swim up against the current rather than walking back along the gravel beach. (Why, now of all times, does the memory come back to me?)