Wings of fire Book one: Befriending a monster.

A drop of blood to save the many

The dead sky-wing's head fell into the mud, as Mistral turned towards the other guards. They were afraid, they saw how easy it was for him to kill, there was a clear choice. The choice was either death or betraying a cruel and dying queen. A few dragons flew away, dropping their chains and flying towards the mountains behind him, hopefully escaping.

"Traitors!" A sky-wing shouted from across the river.

"You have two choices here, dying like this dragon, or flying away to safety like them." Mistral said, pointing to the body, then to the guards by the mountains.

"Oh wow, I guess the monster can speak." They replied sarcastically. "Great, are you going to kill those dragonets too? Apparently the rumors were right."

"What?"

"Some of us think that you have been working with Scarlet this entire time, acting to make us guards more obedient."

"That's not true, Scarlet tortured and starved me into killing dragons in her arena, I would rather kill her than work for her."

"If that's true, then why did you kill him? You didn't have to do that, Scarlet wasn't forcing you to."

"It was the only way to make you listen."

"Well, I'm done listening."

The sky-wing charged across the river, not making it very far, Mistral shot a blasts of ice at their face and chest as they started to sink beneath the surface. They drowned. The other guards flew away, not wanting to end up the same. He turned around, Clay and Sunny looked either disgusted or scared, did he do something wrong? He was just protecting them.

Starstorm smiled and said. "He could have killed them all, or we could have been captured. At least you tried to save that mean one. Sunny are you okay?"

"I think so."

"We need to keep going, Mistral can't convince Burn not to kill us." Tsunami said.

"He can't fly though, and walking doesn't help much." Starstorm added.

"Could we swim?" Clay asked.

Glory's scales turned turned from orange and red to a muddy brown as she made a face.

"I'm not a very good swimmer, but I can try." Sunny said nervously, standing a few tail lengths away from Mistral.

"They can see us from the air." Tsunami stated, pacing as troops of sky-wings flew out of the palace in the distance, being led on by Burn.

"Not Glory, she can camouflage herself in the river. Clay excitedly replied. "And if she rides on your back, she'll hide you too." He continued despite the angry looks Glory and Tsunami gave each other. "Then we can roll Sunny in mud and put her on my back."

"That's a good idea but I don't think Mistral or I have ever swam before." Starstorm added, now flicking her barbed tail back and forth, anxious about the situation.

"If we swim to the delta we'll be swimming with the current, so it should be easy to get used to it. If you cover yourselves with mud and keep low there shouldn't be a problem" Tsunami responded.

"Alright, good plan Clay." Starstorm said, walking to the river to cover herself in mud.