The Dark Queen

Chapter 2

The room was lavish. Kind of like the room Halo was given at the SandWing Palace. This one was a lot more open though. She noticed a lot of primarily SkyWing hybrids soar through the palace spires. These were clearly what were known as RedWings. A lot of RedWings seemed generally curious to meet her, but stayed away for some reason. Queen Bluemoon had probably asked them to. Halo's chains had been taken away when she entered the room and there was an entire bookshelf with ColorWing books, which Halo was fascinated to read. The mere size of her room could have 10 dragons with her wingspan and not feel pressed in. These dragons used BOOKS. Halo hadn't seen one until she reached the ColorWings. The only things she had ever seen that resembled them were scrolls. She was even astonished to find a copy of her favorite romance scroll as a book. She flipped through it excitedly and found it was signed by the author, which made Halo treasure it even more. But there was still the pressing matter of her friends. Queen Bluemoon had allowed Halo to see them, under supervision of course. The guards should be coming to escort Halo soon. These guards would also be taking Frostelle on the way out. A mind reading animus was in great use. Stardreamer wasn't coming. She could only have prophetic visions. Her prophecies were cotton fluff. That was something that Halo was shocked to discover. A sharp knock on the door brought Halo back to reality. A SilkWing-SeaWing hybrid named Xerces and a SilkWing-LeafWing hybrid named Iris. She carefully followed them and they walked into a warm area. Iris, who Halo knew from talking to her when she was on watch, was friendlier and waved one of her wings at a small bubbling pool. "This is a hotspring area. We keep the tribes who like to be warmer around this side, so this can keep them at a desired temperature and the colder tribes are on the other side, where we have the ice water springs. We use hotspring water for baths and relaxation. It's also good to practice swimming in. However, after we leave the hotsprings, we have to take a short icewater bath for five minutes or so. This keeps us from overheating when we fly. There are larger pools outside for ColorWing use. Like I said earlier, these smaller ones are for temperature moderation." Halo nodded. Iris's gold and white wings that had the leaf shape of LeafWings, yet the four wings of her SilkWing side, were flickering excitedly. The first cage, Halo saw someone she recognized. The light sandy colors and black horns of the SandWing were unmistakable, even in a crowd of SandWings. "Suna!" Her SandWing friend shot her head up. "Halo! Why are you free? Are we all getting freed?" Suna's face glowed with hope. Halo sighed. "Sadly not. I'm just free because Queen Bluemoon needs my help with something." Suna nodded. "Alright. I get it. Though I'm surprised by something." Halo tilted her head. "What confuses you?" Suna tapped one of her talons to her head. "Why you first and not Frostelle? Frostelle has mind reading AND animus magic. Why not her first?" Suna's shadowy eyes met Halo's lighter ones. "I think you need to explain something, Halo. You need to do it now." Halo sighed. "Yeah, yeah. You're right. I think it's time I tell you what I really am."