The dragonets swam and drifted, drifted and swam, all the rest of that day and into the night. When it was fully dark and they hadn’t seen any blasts of fire overhead for some time, they crawled out onto a mud bank to eat and rest.

It turned out hunting was a lot harder in wide-open grassland than it was in an enclosed cave. Clay cursed the guardians several times as two rabbits and a coyote slipped through his talons. But he finally caught and killed some kind of large, warty pig with leathery skin, which he dragged back to share with the others.

Sunny came bounding out to help him lift the carcass. “Tsunami caught some fish, too,” she said. “And I dug up these awesome wild carrots but nobody else wants to eat them.”

“Carrots?” Clay said, wrinkling his snout. “Who would eat those on purpose?”

“I like them,” Sunny said. “And these are all earthy and crunchy. I bet you’d like them if you tried them.”

“Nope,” Clay said. “We’re free now. I’m only going to eat what I want to eat from now on.” As long as it’s slow enough for me to catch it, he thought ruefully.

It was too dark to see much of the landscape around them other than the twisted shadows of trees here and there, but the light of the moons outlined the jagged mountains looming against the sky. Dark shapes wheeled over the peaks like bats. Burn had not given up searching for them, and probably wouldn’t anytime soon, Tsunami pointed out.

“Why does she want to kill us?” Sunny asked. “We haven’t done anything to her.”

“She doesn’t trust prophecies,” Tsunami said. “Especially ours. It says two of the sisters will die — of those ‘who blister and blaze and burn’ — but it doesn’t say who. She’d only like it if it said really specifically that Burn was going to have a great victory. Right now it’s too vague and cryptic for her. She’d rather get us out of the way and fight the war on her own terms.”

“So when we pick who wins, it definitely won’t be her,” Sunny said with a shiver.

“Maybe Blaze,” Tsunami said, gnawing a piece of meat. “Starflight says she’s dumb, but at least the SandWings like her.”

“I like the sound of Blister,” Glory said. “There’s nothing wrong with a smart queen. Not that I get a say or anything.”

Clay glanced at her, surprised, but Tsunami answered before he could ask what that meant.

“Blister isn’t just smart, though,” Tsunami said. She rested her head on her front talons. “If we can believe the scrolls and everything the guardians told us, she’s cunning and manipulative and doesn’t care what she has to do to become queen. Even if it means destroying the other tribes and the rest of the world along the way.”

The dragonets fell silent. The enormity of the sky above them made Clay feel very small. It seemed crazy to think they’d get to choose the next SandWing queen, let alone end the war. Who would listen to them? Certainly not the rival queens themselves. How could five dragonets make anything happen?

Sunny stared up at the moons hopefully. Clay knew how she felt — he wanted Starflight to suddenly drop out of the stars and land beside them again, too. He hadn’t thought he’d miss his know-it-all friend so much, but it felt wrong not to have him there.

Especially when he probably could have answered some of their questions, like where Glory’s venom had suddenly come from. “Do you think all RainWings can do that?” Clay asked after Tsunami and Sunny fell asleep, curled up together. Glory was lying apart from the others with her tail curled over her nose, staring fixedly at the mountains.

“How should I know?” Glory demanded. “Has anyone ever told me anything about RainWings — except that they’re lazy and, by the way, in case we haven’t mentioned it a thousand times, not part of the prophecy?”

“Are you mad at me?” Clay asked. It seemed like she’d barely spoken to him since their escape.

Glory closed her eyes and didn’t answer. Which seemed kind of like a yes to Clay.

He didn’t let himself sleep for long, although he was exhausted. They all wanted to keep going while it was still dark. When he forced his eyes open, two of the moons were dipping behind the mountains while the third was glowing high in the sky. The river lapped and gurgled softly nearby, and the mud was warm under his scales.

Then he noticed that Glory was gone.

His heart plunged. He thought, No, I’m not losing anyone else.

Clay shook the others awake. “Where’s Glory?” he whispered.

“I knew it,” Tsunami growled, leaping to her feet. “I knew she was angry about something.”

“About what?” Sunny asked with a bewildered look at the darkness. “Isn’t she glad we escaped?”

“Maybe she didn’t feel welcome,” Tsunami said, “thanks to this clodhopper.” There was a pause, and then she flicked Clay with her tail. “That’s you, dopey.”

“Oh.” Clay had been trying to figure out what a clodhopper was. “What did I do now?”

“Gee, let’s think,” Tsunami said. “Oh, oh, wouldn’t it be amazing if psychotic Peril was our ‘wings of sky.’ Maybe she’s the fifth dragonet we’ve been waiting for our whole lives. Let’s just toss aside Glory, like Morrowseer wanted us to, and replace her with the first SkyWing who comes along.”

“I didn’t want to replace Glory,” Clay said, appalled. “I just — I thought Peril might fit in with us — but all of us! I never wanted Glory to leave! Besides, wait.” He clutched his head. “It was Glory’s idea. She said Peril might be our SkyWing.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t supposed to get so excited about it,” Tsunami said.

“What?” Clay sputtered. “That’s not fair. It’s like I’m in trouble for failing some kind of secret test only girl dragons know about.”

“I didn’t know about it,” Sunny objected.

“No, you’re in trouble for choosing that vicious SkyWing over Glory,” Tsunami snapped back.

“I never did!” Clay nearly yelled. “I wouldn’t do that. Nobody told me it was one or the other.”

“That’s true,” Sunny interjected. “I never thought anyone meant we’d have Peril instead of Glory. I thought we’d all go fulfill the prophecy together.”

“Of course you did,” Tsunami said to her. “We always know what you’re thinking.”

Sunny’s back spines flared up. “Do we?” she said in a voice as close to a growl as Clay had ever heard from her.

Tsunami had already turned back to Clay. “Glory’s probably on her way to the rain forest right now. I bet she figures we’re better off without her.”

“But that’s not true,” Clay protested. “She’s one of us. The prophecy doesn’t say we can’t care about anyone else. She’s the reason we did all this, why we escaped in the first place — doesn’t she know that?”

“Good grief,” Tsunami said. “Is that supposed to make her feel better? All of this is her fault?”

“No, not like that,” Clay said. “I mean, I’d do it again. I’d do all of it again, and more, and anything, to make sure she was all right. I’d do the same for any of you.” He looked down at the mud squishing through his talons. “We have to follow her. Forget the delta and my family and all that. We’ll go to the rain forest and find her, right now.”

Frogs chirruped in the darkness around them. Sunny looked from Tsunami to Clay and back.

“Told you so,” said Tsunami.

“Yeah, OK,” said Glory’s voice. “You were right. For once.” Clay felt her wing tips brush against his, and her scales slowly shimmered back into sight in the moonlight. “Thanks, Clay. That was sweet.”

“You were there the whole time?” he said, jumping back.

“I was trying to decide if I should leave,” Glory said. “I thought you wanted me to, but Tsunami said you didn’t. I’m sorry, I was just — really mad.”

“Well, now I’m really mad,” Clay huffed. “That was a mean trick.”

“It was Tsunami’s idea!” Glory said. “Be mad at her.”

“Oh, thanks,” Tsunami said.

“I’m mad at both of you!” Clay stomped over to the river. “Come on, Sunny, let’s go plan a clever, rotten trick of our own.”

“Clay,” Glory called after him, but she didn’t sound terribly worried. She knows I’ll always forgive her, Clay grumbled to himself. They know I can’t help it.

“We should keep swimming anyway,” he heard Tsunami say to her.

Sunny caught up to him at the edge of the river.

“That was mean,” she said. “I don’t think we should trick each other like that.”

“Next time we stop, we should shake mud all over her,” Clay suggested.

Sunny wrinkled her snout at him. “I’m serious! You’ve always said we have to stick together. You always stop the others from fighting. You should tell them that means we have to trust each other, too. And you should tell them to be better listeners. You know, to everyone.”

“I think they know that,” Clay said, adding another layer of mud to her scales. He was also pretty sure Glory and Tsunami would laugh at him if he started lecturing them on how to be better friends.

Sunny sighed and climbed onto his back. They slipped into the water again, and he felt the ripples of Glory and Tsunami doing the same close behind them.

The river seemed to get warmer as they swam south and east, toward the sea. After a while, the sun peeked over the horizon ahead of them, and they saw the glitter of vast ocean in the distance. The land rolled down like unfurling dragon wings, through scrub-covered hills of pale brown and dark green.

Clay forgot to worry about hostile dragons in the sky; he forgot to worry about where Starflight was; he forgot to be angry at Glory. His wings beat to the rhythm of his heart, faster and faster, pushing him through the water. The Mud Kingdom was so close. His own dragons, the world he’d always imagined.

The sound of a waterfall up ahead didn’t worry him either. He dodged the rocks jutting out of the river and called to Sunny to hang on. As the speeding current swept them over the ridge, he spread his wings and vaulted into the air.

For a moment he was all joy, riding the wind. Ahead of him he could see the river branching into a hundred small streams as it wandered through marshes into the sea. And he could see the homes of MudWings — tall mounds made of mud, several dragons high and several more wide, jutting out of the marshes like fat brown teeth.

Then Sunny clutched his neck with a gasp of horror, and Clay looked down.

Right below them, between the ridge and the marshes, was a battlefield littered with dead dragons.

Clay stayed in the air, circling the battlefield slowly. The river below the waterfall was muddy and dark with spilled blood, and it didn’t run clear again as far as his eye could see. He wasn’t getting back into that water.

The ground was churned up into mud, but not welcoming mud — here it had blood and bones ground into it, with broken wings sticking out from large sodden lumps, like tree branches smashed by a storm. The dragon bodies were so covered in mud that they all looked like MudWings, but here and there Clay saw the bright shimmer of icy blue and the near white of desert-sand scales. One IceWing had been dropped at the base of the cliff not far from the waterfall, and the spray cast a small rainbow over his shredded silver wings and bloody scales.

“This battle must have just happened,” Sunny said. “In the last few days, I mean. Look, some of the fires are still burning.” She leaned over his shoulder and pointed to the orange flames that dotted the muddy ground, belching ugly, foul-smelling black smoke into the sky.

Clay swooped lower over one of the fires and saw brown-scaled limbs sticking out of the burning wreckage. He spiraled back into the sky, trying not to throw up. Those were the corpses of MudWings burning.

Glory and Tsunami caught up to him, flying separately. Glory had abandoned the color of the river for a muted green, like grass dotted with morning dew. Tsunami’s gills flared, and her gaze darted around the battlefield. They both looked as sick as Clay felt.

“Who do you think won?” Tsunami asked.

“Who won?” Sunny cried. “Nobody. No one could look at this place and think, ‘hooray, we won.’ They just couldn’t.” Her voice was subdued and sad and furious all at once.

“Blaze’s army must have attacked the MudWings,” Glory said. “See, there are IceWings and SandWings — that’s Blaze’s alliance.”

“I bet the MudWings sent a message to Queen Scarlet asking for help,” Tsunami growled. “And I bet she decided to let them fight alone rather than interrupt her hatching-day festivities.”

Clay could see evidence of the IceWings’ freezing breath, even now, when most of the ice would have melted. Some of the bodies below were intact, but twisted into horrific positions of agony, their mouths agape as if they’d been frozen mid-scream. Several patches of dirt glittered with tiny ice crystals, where blasts of cold air had missed and frozen the ground instead. And on some of the corpses, body parts had been sheared off in sharp, clean lines, where half a leg had been frozen and then fallen away.

“We’re not going to find help here,” Clay realized.

Sunny pushed herself off his back and wheeled around in front of him. “Why not?”

“The MudWings won’t trust the four of us, all together like this,” he said. The others gathered around him, beating their wings to stay in place.

“That’s true,” Glory said slowly. “Especially you, Tsunami. The SeaWings are on Blister’s side.”

“I should go in alone,” Clay said. “If my parents are still alive —” He stopped, distracted by a flash of white below. His stomach heaved as he realized it was a bone with the flesh scorched off, sticking out of an unrecognizable pile of mud.

“— you’ll have a better chance of finding them without a couple of MudWing enemies tagging along,” Tsunami finished. “But we don’t know what’s waiting for you in there. They might take you prisoner, too, like Queen Scarlet did.”

“This isn’t where the MudWing queen lives,” Glory said. “She’s farther south, in the swamps. We’re on the outskirts of the Mud Kingdom here. Not that that makes it safer, I guess.”

Clay remembered Kestrel saying something about “lowest-born” MudWings living around the delta. But he didn’t care if his parents were peasants or clodhoppers or any of those words. He didn’t need a royal family; he just wanted his family.

“If I don’t come back by sunrise tomorrow,” he said, “come looking for me.”

“What if you need us before then?” Sunny worried.

“I can go with you,” Glory said suddenly. “If they figure out I’m a RainWing, nobody will care — we’re not in the war anyway. But I can also do this.” She hovered for a moment, fluttering her wings, and then brown spilled across her scales. Amber and gold glinted in the cracks and along her underbelly, and the rising sun seemed to melt her to the warmest color of earth.

“I think you’re still too pretty to be a MudWing,” Clay said doubtfully. She was too long and graceful, and the ruff around her ears wasn’t very MudWing either, although she could fold it back until it was hard to spot. And if she kept her tail straight instead of curling it like a RainWing’s . . .

“Nonsense,” Tsunami said. “You’re just as pretty as Glory, Clay.” Sunny nodded vigorously.

Clay wrinkled his snout at them. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

“Me neither,” Glory said. “Let’s just go, before the MudWings spot us all hovering suspiciously over this battlefield.”

“We’ll wait by the waterfall. Be safe.” Tsunami wheeled up and around. Clay watched her sleek blue form fly away with Sunny hurrying after.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he said to Glory. She shrugged, and he remembered he was supposed to be mad at her. Why couldn’t he keep things like that in his head?

As they flew down into the marshes, Clay wondered why no one had come to bury or burn the dead on the battlefield. He couldn’t imagine leaving any dragon lying out there like that, not even enemies.

“There,” Glory said quietly, tilting her wings. Clay saw a small circle of seven MudWings on the ground near one of the mud towers. They seemed to be practicing a formation — turning and lashing out and defending their flanks without losing their positions.

He took a deep breath. This was it. Time to meet dragons of his own tribe.

Wind that smelled of the sea whistled around his ears as they swooped down. Reeds bent and ducked away from the breeze of their landing. Clay felt his claws sink into wet, marshy dirt, and a shiver of joy ran along his spine.

The MudWings heard them land and whirled around, teeth bared. Clay threw open his wings and held up his front talons, trying to look harmless.

All seven brown dragons stared at him and Glory for a moment as if confused. Then the biggest one shifted her wings and made a dismissive noise deep in her throat. At once they all turned their backs and returned to their formation practice.

Clay blinked at them as the dragons shifted left and darted forward one at a time, clawing at an imaginary assailant. The biggest dragon grunted orders now and then, although they sounded more like suggestions than commands. “Watch your tail on the outside — save some energy for the next thrust — don’t forget the signals from the inner wings,” she called.

It was as if they’d forgotten Clay and Glory were there. He gave Glory a helpless look.

“Maybe we should find someone else to ask,” he whispered.

“AHEM.” Glory cleared her throat loudly. “Excuse me.”

The biggest dragon glanced at them, arching her brows. “Carry on,” she said to the rest of the soldiers, then slithered over to face Glory. Her thick bulk slid easily over the mud, giving her a sinuous grace even though she was as solidly built as Clay. She had patches of mud and grass plastered over several recent wounds on her sides and neck, and one of her horn tips was broken off.

“Look, I’m sorry there’s only two of you left,” the MudWing said bluntly, “but we’re not looking to add anyone. We’ve only lost one in three years, and that’s because we’re focused, we practice every sunrise, and we don’t bring in unsibs.”

“Unsibs?” Clay echoed. The MudWing gave him a puzzled look. Glory trod on his foot. Act like you know what they’re talking about, Clay reminded himself.

“We’re just looking for someone,” Glory said. “A MudWing couple who lost an egg six years ago.”

“A MudWing couple?” said the other dragon, sounding confused. Clay felt drops of morning dew dripping on him from the leaves overhead. He stirred the mud with his tail and tried to look like he stood in swamps every day. He wanted to fling himself to the ground and roll around like a new-hatched dragonet, but he had a feeling that might seem odd and undignified.

“There was a red egg,” Glory tried. “It was stolen from around here somewhere.”

“Stolen!” hissed the MudWing. “I’d like to see any dragon try that!” Her talons flexed open and shut ominously, squelching in the mud. Glory took a step back.

“Or taken, anyway,” she said. “Maybe by a dragon named Asha?”

The MudWing’s back ridges relaxed. “Oh, Asha,” she said. “That’s right. Her sister Cattail had a blood egg about six years back. But I can tell you there wasn’t any stealing involved. Indeed.” She snorted.

Clay’s chest felt ready to burst. Cattail! His mother had a name! “Is she all right?” he asked. “Cattail? Is she still alive?”

“Somehow,” the other dragon snorted. “That troop has no discipline. And their bigwings hasn’t been the same since Asha left. They’re down to four now.”

It was like a different language. Clay desperately wanted to ask what a bigwings was, but he didn’t dare.

“Where can we find her?” Glory asked.

The MudWing raised a claw and pointed at a gap between the mounds. “They’ll still be asleep, but that troop usually bunks in the sleephouse with the hole in the side, at the end of the dry path.”

“Thanks,” Clay said as she turned back to her formation. She didn’t answer, her focus already back on the other soldiers.

There was a raised dirt path winding between the tall dragon mounds and swamp grasses. Clumps of reeds shushed and swished in the breeze and gnarled trees dotted the marsh. Most of the trees were covered in hanging vines, although when Clay looked closer, he could see that some of the vines were actually thick coils of crimson and olive-green snakes. The deep croak of bullfrogs warbled through the air.

As they followed the path, Clay peered into one of the giant mud puddles, trying to spot a particularly loud bullfrog. Suddenly a pair of eyes blinked open in the middle of the mud. Clay jumped back, nearly knocking Glory into the marsh on the other side of the path.

“Watch it!” she hissed.

“There’s a dragon in there,” he whispered. Now he could see two ears like his sticking up behind the eyes, and two nostrils poking out of the mud in front. The eyes regarded him narrowly for a moment, then closed. The dragon sank below the mud again.

“There’s one over here, too,” Glory whispered back. Clay turned and saw that what looked like a submerged log was actually the long, ridged back of a dragon, lying just below the surface of the mud. His nose rested on a rock, his eyes were closed, and he was snoring softly.

“Gosh, they look comfortable,” Clay said.

Glory shuddered. “I could never sleep in mud. My dreams would be full of quicksand and mosquitoes and goopy muck that would never wash off.”

Now that they were looking, they saw more submerged dragons in every mud pool. The sun was climbing the sky. As the rays spread across the swamp, some of the dragons began to rise up from the mud, opening their wings and basking in the warmth. Others emerged from the mounds through low doorways hacked out of the muddy bases.

None of them took any notice of Clay or Glory, which struck him as odd. The dragons seemed uninterested in strangers in their midst. He noticed that they stayed in their troops, each somewhere between five and nine dragons, talking only to the other MudWings in their own group. One group of six all came out of the same mound and then formed a circle around it, stretching their wings and necks and tails in unison.

Another group of eight dragons bubbled up from the shallows of a muddy lake and took to the sky, one at a time, following the biggest in a large swoop around the swamp. After a few moments of circling, the leader dove into the reeds and rose up again with a crocodile thrashing in his talons. He landed on an island of dry ground, and all eight dragons began to rip up and eat the crocodile together.

“The scrolls never said anything about this. We didn’t have any really good scrolls about MudWing life. But maybe they’re like army troops,” Glory guessed. “You stick with your own soldiers. Maybe that’s what makes them such strong fighters, because they have these little loyal units within the army.”

“Maybe,” Clay said. He liked how close the dragons within each group were. But it made him nervous that no one had greeted him and Glory or asked who they were or anything. Still, once his mother knew who he was, surely he’d be welcomed with open wings.

He twisted to look around the village and finally met a pair of eyes — the only ones looking his way. They were a shade of pale amber, and they belonged to a small MudWing with a healing mud patch stuck across his nose. His horns were not yet full grown, but he wasn’t a very young dragonet either. He was staring at Clay curiously, boldly. Clay smiled and waved a wing at him.

The little MudWing blinked and darted back into his mound.

The path led under one of the trees heavy with snakes and away from the center of the village, toward an area of the swamp where there were fewer, more isolated mounds. After a short walk, the path ended at a lake filled with swaying reeds. Next to the lake was a lopsided mound with a crumbling hole toward the top, as if a dragon had punched through the mud in a rage at some point.

Clay found himself holding his breath as they got closer. Was this where he should have hatched? It was much warmer and wetter than the cold, bare cave under the mountain. But there was a heavy smell of rotting vegetation and no sign of life from the last mound. They paused outside of it, glancing at the stagnant reed-choked water in the lake.

“This must be what that dragon called a sleephouse,” Glory said. “So I guess your mother’s in there?”

“Cattail,” Clay said quietly, trying out the word.

They sat on the path for a moment. “Aren’t you going to go in?” Glory asked.

Clay didn’t really love the idea of sticking his head into a dark mud tower full of strange dragons. “I’m sure someone will come out soon —” he started, and just then a wide, flat snout poked out of the doorway. A pair of yellow eyes glared at him.

“It’s a pair of dragonets,” growled the MudWing. “Chattering like crows while we’re trying to sleep.”

“Well, get rid of them!” roared a voice from inside the mound.

“I’m sorry,” Clay stammered. “We didn’t mean to be loud. We’re looking for Cattail.” He hoped fervently that this wasn’t his father.

The dragon squinted at him, then withdrew into the mound. They heard grumbling and grunts and wings flapping, as if the MudWings inside were scrunching around to let one of them climb over the others.

At last a thin brown dragon scrambled out into the open. She shook out her wings, which had dappled patterns of paler brown scales, and frowned down at Clay and Glory.

“Yes?” she said. “What do you want?”

Clay’s talons felt rooted to the ground. He couldn’t believe it. After all of his imagining and wondering and hoping, here he was — finally face-to-face with his own mother.

Clay could only open and close his mouth silently. Glory rolled her eyes and jumped in.

“Are you Cattail?” she asked. “Asha’s sister?”

The dappled dragon gave a little hiss and ducked her head. “Yes,” she said. “Who are you?”

Glory poked Clay hard with one of her talons. He blurted, “I’m Clay. I think I’m your son.”

Cattail stared at him. Her eyes were brown like his, but with a ring of yellow around the black slit of a pupil. He waited, his heart pounding. He’d imagined this moment a thousand times. In The Missing Princess, this was when the joy and feasting began.

“So?” Cattail said.

Clay guessed she hadn’t heard him right. “I think you’re my mother,” he said.

“Those would seem connected,” said Cattail. “And?”

“You don’t understand,” Glory said. “This is the dragonet you lost six years ago.”

Cattail’s claws slowly stirred the mud underneath her. “I haven’t lost any dragonets.” She didn’t look confused or worried or pleased. Mostly she looked like she was putting up with this conversation until they let her go back to sleep.

Clay had no idea what to say.

“Listen,” Glory said. “Maybe we got this wrong. Clay hatched from a blood-red egg that was taken from somewhere around here six years ago by a dragon named Asha. He’s come back looking for —”

“Oh, that egg,” Cattail said with a yawn. “Asha got all excited about that. Don’t know why; the village has a red egg every few years or so. But I didn’t lose it.”

“What happened to it?” Clay managed to ask.

“We sold it to the Talons of Peace,” Cattail said. She gave them a look that was suddenly sharp and furtive. “Does this mean they want the cows back? Because they can’t have them. I know we were supposed to breed them, but we ate them, so too bad.”

“You sold me?” Clay cried. He felt like long claws were slashing through his chest.

“Why not?” Cattail asked. “There were six other eggs in the hatching. They didn’t need you.” She pulled a stray duck feather out from between her talons. “Asha didn’t tell you any of this?”

“Asha’s dead,” Glory said. “She died trying to keep Clay’s egg safe.”

“Dead?” Now Cattail finally looked upset. “I told her not to leave us! Our bigwings will be furious.” She flicked her tongue out and in with a growl. “I guess it serves her right, choosing the Talons over us.”

“She was trying to help fulfill the prophecy,” Glory snapped. “At least the Talons care about something besides themselves.” Clay would have laughed if he hadn’t felt so crushed. That was the nicest thing Glory had ever said about the Talons of Peace.

“That’s Asha, all right,” Cattail said. “She was always softhearted and mushy about crazy things. She loved mooning around little dragonets, telling the story of that prophecy. She left a lot of blithering, obsessed dreamy-eyed dragons behind in this village, let me tell you; they still won’t shut up about destiny and peace and all that.”

Dragons did not cry easily, and Clay had never shed tears in his whole life, no matter how much Kestrel had hurt him with words or claws. But now, suddenly, he had a glimpse of what their life could have been like if Asha had lived. She would have been one more dragon under the mountain to take care of them — but this one kind and affectionate, idealistic and hopeful. A guardian who would have given them faith in the prophecy and themselves. A counterbalance for Kestrel’s harshness.

He had never spent much time thinking about Asha, the dragon who brought in his egg, but now his chest ached with sadness that she was dead and he had never known her. He realized that he was dangerously close to tears, and he could just imagine how his mother would react to that.

“What about my father?” Clay asked, steeling his voice. “Didn’t he try to stop you from selling me?”

Cattail threw her head back and laughed, a high croaking sound like a thousand bullfrogs yelling at once. “You really don’t know anything about MudWings, do you?” she said when she could catch her breath again. “I don’t even know who your father was. And he certainly doesn’t care. We have breeding night once a month and then everyone goes back to their own sleephouses. No, dear, there’s no father here for you.”

“And no mother either, apparently,” Glory said coldly.

But Cattail just nodded, untroubled. “That’s right,” she said. “I wish you luck, but there’s no room in our troop for clingy little dragonets.”

Her voice was matter-of-fact. Clay could see that she wasn’t trying to be mean, but it still hurt worse than anything he’d ever felt — more than Kestrel’s taunts and attacks, more than the IceWing’s claws in his back, more than seeing Sunny in a cage or knowing Peril had betrayed them. He felt all his dreams thudding like stones inside his stomach.

He’d always believed there was someone out in the world waiting for him. He’d imagined finding his mother and father and how it would be just like the story. None of the scrolls they’d studied had talked about MudWing families, but he knew NightWings and SeaWings had mothers and fathers, so he’d always assumed all the dragon tribes were the same way.

It had never occurred to him that no one would even know who his father was. And he certainly hadn’t expected his own mother to care so little, or to send him away as soon as she met him.

Another thing Asha could have warned me about, he thought bitterly. If she’d lived, she could have told him how things were in the Mud Kingdom and saved him a lot of useless dreaming.

“Come on, Clay,” Glory said, tugging on his wing. She steered him back toward the mud village. Clay’s scales felt as heavy as boulders. His tail dragged slowly behind him.

“You tell the Talons,” Cattail called after them, “that we made a deal! No matter what happened, they can’t have those cows back!”

“Do you want to try talking to anyone else?” Glory asked as they reached the village. “Maybe she’s wrong, and your father would want to know you.”

Clay shook his head. “There’s no point,” he said. “I don’t have a place here.”

Suddenly Glory stopped with a hiss. She pointed to the clearing ahead and darted under the nearest low-hanging vines. Clay hurried after her.

A burly SandWing was stamping his feet in the center of the mud village, trying to shake off the wet mud that clung to his claws. He was missing an ear and a couple of teeth, and he grimaced at the two MudWings in front of him.

“What?” he bellowed. “Speak up!”

One of the MudWings raised his voice. “I said we haven’t seen anyone like that.”

“You sure?” said the SandWing. “There’ll be four of them. A MudWing, a RainWing, a SeaWing, and a kind of SandWing-looking thing.”

The MudWing wrinkled his snout. “No,” he said. “I assure you we would have noticed a SeaWing, a RainWing, or a … ‘SandWing-looking thing’ strolling through our sleephouses.”

The SandWing snorted, as if he doubted that was true. “Well,” he said, “if you do spot them, let Queen Burn know right away.”

Both of the MudWings bowed their heads politely. “Of course.”

Glory and Clay ducked farther under the tree as the SandWing took to the sky. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Glory whispered.

“I forgot the MudWings are on Burn’s side,” said Clay. “We’re lucky Cattail didn’t know Burn was looking for us. She would have turned me over in a heartbeat.” He didn’t feel lucky, though. He felt perfectly miserable.

“Let’s go around the village,” Glory said, slithering back toward the waving reeds. Almost at once, she sank in a pool of mud up to her belly. “Oh, urrrrrgh,” she groaned.

Clay saw a snout poke out of the swamp a short distance away. The dragon gave them a suspicious look.

“Remember to act like a MudWing,” he whispered, sliding into the mud beside Glory. “Mmmmmm, mud!”

“Yaaay,” Glory said unenthusiastically. She floundered a few more steps into the reeds, spattering mud all across her wings.

This was going to be a long walk at that pace. Clay checked the sky. “All right, he’s out of sight. We can fly back to the others.”

He wriggled out of the mud onto a dry island and hauled Glory up beside him. They both shook their wings to get the biggest clumps off, and then they leaped, quickly clearing the trees. Clay spotted the river winding toward the cliff to their left and banked in that direction. He was ready to leave the Mud Kingdom behind him forever.

“Hey!” a voice shouted behind them. “You, dragonets! Stop!”

Panic shot through Clay and he sped up, flapping his wings frantically. Glory soared up beside him.

“Stop!” she whispered. “If we run, they’ll know there’s something wrong.”

Clay knew she was right, but it was almost impossibly hard to swing around and fly back toward the MudWing village and the voice that had called after them.

Five dragons were hovering in the sky, watching them intently. As they drew close to each other, Clay realized that they were dragonets, not yet full-grown. The biggest one was a bit smaller than Clay, with warm golden-amber eyes and a recent claw-mark wound on his tail. The smallest was the dragon with the patch on his nose who had stared at Clay in the village.

“Hey,” Clay said to them. He hoped he sounded casual and nonthreatening. “We were just leaving.”

The MudWing dragonets glanced at each other. The biggest one said, “We heard you were asking about a blood egg from one of Cattail’s hatchings.”

“That’s right,” Glory said.

“Do you know what happened to it?” the smallest MudWing blurted. “Did it hatch? Who came out? Where’s the dragonet?”

Glory poked Clay with her tail before he could respond. “Who’s asking?” she said.

“I’m Reed,” said the biggest dragonet. “This is Sora, Pheasant, Marsh, and Umber.” The smallest one, Umber, had his eyes fixed on Clay again. The other three kept checking the sky with nervous expressions.

“I’m Clay, and this is Glory,” Clay answered. Pheasant tilted her head at Glory.

“That’s not a normal MudWing name,” she said. Oops, Clay thought.

“I didn’t choose it,” Glory said with a shrug that lifted her up and down in the air currents.

“Did one of you hatch from the blood egg?” asked Reed. “Are you our missing sib?”

“Sib!” Clay said suddenly. “Siblings! That’s what everyone keeps talking about!” He launched himself forward and gripped Reed’s front talons. “Is that what you mean? Were we in the same hatching?”

“I knew it!” Umber yelped. “I knew he had a familiar feeling! I told you!” He bundled into Marsh and nearly knocked them both out of the air.

“You’re our brother,” Reed said with a grin that warmed Clay to the tips of his claws. “You should have been with us all along.”

“He’s not just our brother,” Pheasant pointed out. “Look at him. He should be our bigwings.”

The grin faded from Reed’s face as he studied Clay from wing tips to talons. “That’s true,” he said.

Clay wanted to bring that grin back. He didn’t understand what was wrong. He pointed to a clear island in the marshes below. “Let’s talk,” he said.

His brothers and sisters couldn’t believe how little he knew about MudWing life, but they were happy to explain it all to him, their words tumbling over one another. The five of them coiled together naturally in the tall grass, tails and talons and wings entwined, with Umber climbing up their backs and standing on heads to make himself heard.

They told him that MudWing dragons laid their eggs in warm mud nests protected by walls of hot rocks. They were so safe that the mother never needed to check on them, and the dragonets were usually born when she wasn’t even there. The firstborn was always the biggest, and his or her first task was to help the other dragonets out of their eggs by cracking their shells from the outside.

As they came to this part of the explanation, Glory gasped. She turned to Clay. “That’s what it was!” she said. “When we hatched — the guardians didn’t know anything about MudWings, so they thought you were attacking us. But you were trying to help. Your instinct told you to get the rest of us out of our shells. Clay, you know what this means? You weren’t trying to kill us at all.”

Clay felt like he was filling up with warm summer clouds. Kestrel was wrong, all wrong about him, and she always had been. His strength wasn’t for killing and violence; it was for protecting his brothers and sisters. He wasn’t destined to be a monster. He wasn’t a killer deep inside somewhere.

He was a bigwings.

He crossed his tail over Glory’s and smiled at her, too happy to speak.

“So from then on, the bigwings takes care of all the others,” Pheasant said, nudging Reed with affection. “Some of them can be pretty bossy or too weak, but we got a good one.” She stopped, realizing what she’d said. “I mean … you would have been good, too, I’m sure. . . .”

Reed tugged up a clump of marsh grass and started shredding it without looking at Clay. “And then we all stick together,” he said. “For always. We learn to hunt and survive together, we grow up together, and we live together for the rest of our lives. And when we’re at war, we all fight as a group. Every MudWing troop is a hatching of siblings. Except for the ones who’ve lost too many, and then they try to find unsibs to form a new troop with.”

Pheasant glanced around at the others — wriggling Umber, silent Sora, nervous, twitching Marsh — as if she would rather die than replace them with unsibs who weren’t her own brothers and sisters.

“How many have you — have we lost?” Clay asked.

“Two,” said Reed. “You, and our sister Crane, two days ago in the battle by the cliff.” He nodded in the direction of the waterfall. Clay’s insides twisted as he realized one of the dead bodies he’d flown over had been his own sister.

“That was our first battle,” Sora said softly.

“It was awful,” Umber added.

Reed sighed heavily. “I was not the bigwings I wanted to be.”

“You were!” the others all protested at once. “You were amazing, Reed,” Pheasant said firmly.

“We’d all be dead if it weren’t for you,” Marsh agreed. They all had the same expression as they looked at Reed. Clay could see it was trust — faith that their bigwings would take care of them, no matter what happened.

“But it’s all right now,” Reed said. “Because you’re back, and you should be our bigwings.” He glanced sidelong at Clay, and in his amber eyes Clay could see all the worries he’d ever felt himself … all the fears for his friends, all the things he’d done and would do to protect them, all the ferocity of how much he cared about them.

Clay cared about his real brothers and sisters, too, although he’d only just met them. He felt instinctively like they were extensions of his own claws and wings. This was the family he’d always wanted.

And if he stayed, it would tear them apart.

He could see it in their eyes — they wanted him and were afraid of him at the same time. If he became their bigwings, what would happen to their loyalty to Reed? What would happen to Reed himself, forced to follow him but desperate to protect them his own way?

Clay didn’t know anything about MudWing life, or troop formations, or even how to hunt in a swamp. How could he lead them into battle? It would never be like the closeness they had with Reed, no matter how hard they all tried.

There was only one way to protect his siblings, he realized. If he was really their bigwings, he had to leave them — and leave Reed as their bigwings, the way he’d always been. He would keep them safe better than Clay ever could, and their sibs would not be forced to choose between them.

Glory was looking at him, too.

Clay shook his head. “No,” he said to his brothers and sisters. “Reed is your bigwings. You trust him and you need him. I couldn’t replace him, even if I tried.”

His brother raised his head, pride warring with disbelief on his face. The other dragonets looked relieved and sad at the same time.

“Besides,” Glory said, “he can’t stay with you. He’s our bigwings.” She brushed Clay’s wings with hers. He was glad he couldn’t change colors like her, or he felt like he might have turned crimson from nose to tail.

“Are you sure?” Reed said to Clay. “You could still join us, bigwings or not. There’s more fighting ahead, and we could always use another strong dragon at our side.”

Clay was tempted. He wanted to know his brothers and sisters, and it would be so easy to slip into this life and become a warrior, with no prophecies to worry about and no angry SandWing queens hunting him. But he remembered the charred corpses on the battlefield, and he thought about his friends and how they’d try to go on without him.

“I’m afraid I have a destiny,” he said ruefully. “We’re going to try to stop the war.”

Umber’s eyes went wide. “Like the prophecy?” he breathed. “That’s you?”

Pheasant looked at Glory doubtfully.

“That’s us,” Clay said, touching Glory’s talon.

“Apparently,” Glory added. “More or less.”

“We’ll try, anyway,” Clay said. “But maybe after that, once the war is over … maybe then I could come back?”

“You’re one of us,” Reed said. “You can come back anytime.”

“I hope you do,” Umber said. The others nodded.

Clay looked from face to face, wondering how many of his brothers and sisters would survive the next battle.

He wondered if he could stop the war in time to save them all.

Tsunami and Sunny did not seem at all surprised to hear the explanation of Clay’s attack on their eggs.

“Of course,” Tsunami said. She had hunted while they were gone, and she nudged a dead wild duck in Clay’s direction. “I never thought you were trying to kill us.”

“As if you would ever!” Sunny agreed.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” Clay said. They had found a small grove at the top of the cliff, far enough away from the waterfall and the battlefield that they couldn’t smell the burning dragons anymore. He dug his claws into the duck, suddenly famished.

“So what now, bigwings?” Glory asked, clawing up a pheasant for herself. “I’m never going to get tired of calling you that.”

“We’ll be like the MudWings,” Clay said proudly. “We stick together. No matter what happens. We’re a team, and we look after one another. Which means the first thing we have to do is find Starflight. The NightWings can’t just take him away. He’s one of us, and we’ll search the whole world until we find him. It’s time for us to get our friend ba —”

He stopped as a heavy thump shook the ground and wings flapped to a stop behind him. The others were staring over his shoulder.

“That better not be who I think it is,” said Clay.

“Found him!” Glory said gleefully.

Clay turned around. Starflight stood, blinking, in the waving grass just outside the trees. The sunlight picked up glints of purple and deep blue in his black scales. Up in the sky, the black bulk of Morrowseer was winging away.

“Oh, bye!” Tsunami shouted after him. “Thanks for everything! You’ve been SO HELPFUL!”

Sunny flung herself at Starflight with a cry of joy. “You found us!” She batted his wings with hers. “I hoped you would.” He returned her hug, smiling shyly at her.

“Hello,” Clay said to Starflight. “You couldn’t have waited until after my noble speech? Maybe a day or two, so we could at least pretend to look for you?”

“Morrowseer saw you flying up from the marshes,” Starflight said. “He said to tell you some other dragon could have spotted you, too, and we should be more careful.”

“Well, great,” Tsunami said. “That’s such useful advice. Glad he’s so concerned, now that we’ve managed to save our own selves about a hundred times and everything. Any other survival tips? Or prophecy-fulfilling suggestions?”

Starflight ducked his head, looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry he took me,” he said. “I wanted him to bring me back right away, but he wouldn’t. He said they couldn’t afford to lose any NightWings, even —” He swallowed. “Even peculiar little ones.”

“What the heck does that mean?” Clay asked.

“You’re not peculiar!” Sunny said. “I’m the one that’s peculiar and little.”

“Well, he is a bit,” Glory said. “But we don’t mind.”

Tsunami looked thoughtful. “Couldn’t afford to lose any NightWings?” she echoed. “Is there something wrong with them? Did you notice?”

“No.” Starflight glanced up at the sky. “He didn’t take me to the secret NightWing kingdom, if that’s what you’re wondering. I didn’t even get to meet any of the dragons he’d brought with him. We just stayed up in the mountain peaks, waiting. I guess he wanted to see what would happen to you guys.”

“Not that he was going to do anything about it,” Glory muttered.

“So he doesn’t care what we do next?” Clay asked. “He’s not making us go back to the Talons of Peace?”

“I’m not sure he’s really happy with the Talons of Peace right now,” Starflight said.

“Then we can do whatever we want,” Clay said. “I say we visit Tsunami’s mother, who, by the way,” he said to Starflight, “is the queen of the SeaWings, according to Kestrel.”

“Seriously?” Starflight said, staring at Tsunami. “Like in the scroll? Coral’s supposed to be a great queen. Not crazy like Scarlet.”

Tsunami looked uncharacteristically nervous. “Do you think she’ll be happy to meet me? What if she’s like Clay’s mother — no offense, Clay.”

“I know she’ll be happy to see you,” Starflight said. “Don’t you remember what it said in The Royal Lineage of the SeaWings, from the Scorching to the Present?”

All four dragonets groaned.

“Remind me why we wanted him back?” Glory asked Clay.

“This is important and fascinating!” Starflight said, stomping his feet. “Listen! Queen Coral doesn’t have an heir. Not a single one of her female dragonets has lived to adulthood. Rumor has it there’s a curse on her hatchings. That’s why she’ll be glad to meet Tsunami — you’re the lost heir to the Kingdom of the Sea.”

Tsunami puffed out her chest. “Me? Really?”

“Oh my gosh! Tsunami! You could be queen of the SeaWings one day!” Sunny cried.

Tsunami grinned. “Wouldn’t that be great? I’ve always thought I’d be a good queen.”

“Boy, I don’t know,” Glory said. “I mean, if you want to be queen one day, you’ll have to be bossy, controlling, full of yourself … oh, wait.”

Tsunami whacked her lightly with her tail. “Behave, or I’ll have you beheaded,” she said, lifting her snout.

“So let’s go find the SeaWings,” Clay said. “They’re not on Burn’s side, are they?”

Starflight heaved one of his long-suffering sighs. “No, Clay. They’re allied with Blister, the middle sister, of whom the scrolls say —”

Glory, Tsunami, and Clay all tackled him at once. Sunny tried to come to his rescue, and the five of them ended up scuffling in the grass, laughing.

Clay caught a glimpse of the sky, blue and gold and empty of dragons, for now. He still didn’t know how they would fulfill the prophecy and end the war. He didn’t know how the other dragonets’ families would react to them. He knew Burn was hunting them, and probably other dangerous dragons soon would be as well.

But he knew what he was here to do, and that was protect his friends, no matter what. He’d known it from hatching, even if he hadn’t understood it. He didn’t have to worry about finding his monster or being something he wasn’t anymore. He would have to be enough for the prophecy just the way he was.

Big Heroic Destiny, he thought, here I come.