The Dark Queen

Prologue

It was cold outside and Halo was happy she was a firescales. A cursed one anyhow. It was never, never cold outside to her! Mother and Queen Royal could eat their moonbitten tails! Who CARED that she was barely a year old! She was the best flyer in the Sky Palace! These awkward wings were complete freedom out in the sky! Her natural SkyWing sight could help her narrow down on the best of prey and swipe them away before they even noticed! She waved her wings to her fireless and horrible flier hatchmate, Oriole. He waved his small peach colored wings at her. "Halooooo, please! It's so cold! Please come in, how can you stand it?" Halo waved her wings at Oriole. "Well. Once you get flying it's not so bad and how can you expect me to sit with these large wings next to Grandmother's side! I hope Mother or one of our aunties challenges her and wins. Oriole fluffed his wings. "Well... Grandmother received two challenges. One from Auntie Desire and one from Auntie Finch. A-Auntie Finch just lost... and Grandmother's happy. She wants to keep 3 heirs l-like Queen Oasis from the history books, but she kept you alive because of your fire. A-And now Auntie Finch is dead and now it's just you, Mother and Auntie Desire to stand against her..." Right, Queen Royal was the most paranoid queen of the SkyWings EVER. Halo perked her ears up. "When's the second challenge happening?" Oriole flicked his bright wings. "Now." She flew to the arena and noticed two dragons flying around. One was the pinkish-red of Princess Desire and if you put Desire and Halo next to each other, you'd think Desire was Halo's mother rather than her aunt. The dark ruby red that had glitters of gold in the scales was Queen Royal. An orange corpse lay off to the side, dark red blood pooling around it. That HAD to be Auntie Finch. Halo darted past the prisoners on the towers, which had been rebuilt a hundred or so years ago by Queen Royal's predecessor, Queen Funnel, who unlike the original builder a thousand or so years ago, Queen Scarlet, just wanted a better way to store her prisoners that wouldn't let them escape. She heard the SkyWings make the fire siren, as it was nicknamed a couple hundred years ago. SkyWings making the fire siren meant they were cheering, so the match was over. As Halo swooped down to check it out, she noticed the pinkish red scales of Princess Desire of the SkyWings swoop over the lifeless body of Queen Royal and Halo cried out a small yell. "Queen Desire!"

It was late at night and Shima was still writing. Her father, Prince Kane had poked his head in to check on her, but she shooed him away. 6 SkyWings missing. And one of them was her cousin. Another, her brother. No, not just Halo and Kinglet, but also her best friend, the best Clouddarter ever! Mica. Where WERE they? If Mother hadn't told her to stay quiet when that NightWing was visiting, she would've asked questions. But now she's gone. No, Mother wasn't her mother. Maybe Prince Kane wasn't actually her father. She opened her wings to reveal the silvery red shimmers in her wings. The perfect Princess Shima wasn't completely, perfectly SkyWing. No. She was half-NightWing.