Wings of Fire - Eclipse Burning (1)

Epilogue

"Frog spit and goat tongues!" Queen Scarlet cursed. She shook the sapphire in her talons violently. "Why isn't it working?" 

"It probably is," her companion said smoothly. "The dragon you're looking for must still be awake."

Scarlet glared at him. The vast black sky wheeled over their heads, studded with stars like diamonds. The three moons lit up the toothy peaks of the mountains all around them. "It's the middle of the night. Why wouldn't she be asleep? I gave her an ultimatum. I need to know what's happening there."

He shrugged, tapping something between his front talons. Tap. Tap. "So try a different dragon."

She wrapped her claws around the blue stone again, growling to herself. "Has to be someone I know," she muttered. "but I don't want those dragonet's to see where I am." After a moment, she closed her eyes. "All right. An old favorite."

It only took a minute for her to drop into Peril's dream; as usual, it was tortured and weird, with several Queen Scarlets chasing her through the Sky Palace while corpses of burnt dragons lurched out of various doorways to attack her. Scarlet snorted. What was the point of being a glorious monster with talons of fire if you were going to agonize over it so much? Peril's power was absolutely wasted on her. 

"Stop!" she roared, planting herself in Peril's path. Peril skidded to a halt and looked frantically around; she thought Scarlet was another one of the dream queens. She'd always had trouble figuring out when Scarlet was really visiting her, which could be useful, especially at times like this. 

"Who died today?" Scarlet demanded. "Tell me! Who is dead?"

"No one!" Peril cried. "I didn't kill anyone! I swear!" 

"Stop blithering," Scarlet growled. "Someone must have died today at that ludicrous school."

Peril shook her head wildly. "No. No. No one is dead. Clay is safe, that's what's important. No one is dead. Oh, a MudWing and IceWing are gone, but they're alive, not dead, no one is dead."

Scarlet hissed. She yanked the sapphire away from her head, snapping abruptly out of Peril's dream. 

"I'm going to murder that IceWing!" she yelled. "This is not thrilling at all!"

"She failed?" said the other dragon. He shifted from shadow to moonlight, his scales rippling in strange moonlit colors. Tap. Tap. Tap. "How surprising. Should I kill your prisoner?"

"Yes," Scarlet hissed. "Wait. No." She paced along the ledge, fuming. If she let Hailstorm live, Icicle would stop being frightened of her, her threats would mean nothing. But if she killed him, she'd have lost her only bit of leverage on a very useful pawn. 

Tap. Tap. Tap. 

Of course, Icicle wasn't the only dragon who wanted this particular prisoner back. There was another brother, wasn't there? But Scarlet had never seen him. How would she get into his dreams?

Was there another way to get to him? Or someone else who could kill the dragonets?

"I should do it myself," she muttered. She knew that. She just - every time she thought about that RainWing: the jaw extending horribly, the fans pointed straight at her and the venom flying toward her face - it gave her a sick, squashed feeling that reminded her of her melted scales. It wasn't fear, exactly. She would never say that. 

But if she could find a way to kill them from a distance. . . or at least Glory. . . that would be preferable, certainly. 

"STOP THAT INFERNAL TAPPING!" she roared. "What is it, anyhow? What are you fiddling with in your horrid, gloaty way?" 

"Oh, this?" The dragon lifted the ancient scroll into the moonlight, looked up at it, and smiled. "Don't you worry. This is nothing."

***

I had so much fun writing this and I hope you had just as much fun reading it! I love how it turned out and even if this book doesn't get as much love as I would like it too, I'm going to continue with this series. Normally I start a book and then once I've finished it I publish it all in one go but I don't know if that's how I should do it all the time. Let me know if I should publish each chapter after I proof read it and I'll try my best to keep uploads as consistent as possible. I have a lot of things I'm focusing on lately so sometimes I just don't have the energy or time to write so things just end up sitting in my drafts for a while. 

But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and I hope you keep up with my series in the future! Thank you and have a lovely day <3.