The earth began to shake without stopping, a continuous tremor that jarred Starflight’s teeth in his head and made him feel as though the ledge was about to drop out from under him. The volcano growled again, and another fountain of lava shot over the side and started slithering down the craggy slope.

Morrowseer’s face was lit by the orange glow of the volcano, cruelty etched into every line of his snout.

“You what?” Tsunami said.

The prophecy isn’t real. The words didn’t make sense in Starflight’s head. He couldn’t fit them into the way the world worked, the way his world had always worked. The Dragonet Prophecy isn’t real.

“That’s not true,” Sunny cried. “You’re just saying that to be awful.”

The volcano let out a roar like twenty dragons having their tails stepped on at once.

“Oh, it’s completely true,” Morrowseer growled. “Queen Battlewinner and I wrote it together after the last eruption destroyed part of the fortress. We knew we’d need a new home soon, and the prophecy was our plan to get it.”

“How?” Starflight asked, running the prophecy through his mind. “What does the prophecy have to do with where the NightWings live?”

“The idea was that we would control the dragonets,” Morrowseer said, “by including a NightWing, who, naturally, would be the leader of the group. Your abysmal failure in that department was our first problem. Then we’d choose a SandWing queen, and eventually the NightWings would join the war, with our strength in numbers tipping the balance so our ally would be sure to win.”

“And then your ally, whoever you picked, would help you take over the rainforest,” Starflight puzzled out. “It’s all about you, but not in a way that anyone would notice. Darkness will rise to bring the light — that’s the NightWings.”

“Exactly. The only really important part of the prophecy; we couldn’t be too obvious about it,” said Morrowseer. Behind him, dark smoke was pouring out of the volcano at an alarming rate. “The rest of it? Smoke and mirrors.”

“No!” Sunny almost shouted, making the rest of them jump. “The prophecy is real! We were born to end the fight — to end the war and save everyone!”

“Afraid not,” Morrowseer said nastily. “You’re just as ordinary as any other dragon.”

“Wow,” said Clay. “No wonder I’ve always felt ordinary.”

“But you’re not — you’re not ordinary,” Sunny said, her voice full of tears. Starflight had never seen her so upset. He took a step toward her, reaching out with his wings, but she shoved him away. “What about the red MudWing egg? What about my egg, all alone in the desert?”

“There are scientific patterns to things like the appearance of blood eggs,” said Morrowseer. “We study them and use them in our prophecies to impress our less scientific inferiors. As for the SandWing egg, we planned to set that up, but as it happened, we got a tip that yours was there already. A coincidence.”

“No, it wasn’t, it — it was fate.” Sunny hiccupped.

“On the one talon, you are the worst,” Tsunami said to Morrowseer. “But on the other, Sunny, think about what this means. We can live our own lives. We don’t have to follow some plan that the stars laid out for us. We’re free.”

“But I want to stop the war!” Sunny cried. “All those dragons out there — they believe in the prophecy. They believe in us! If we give up, who will save them?”

“No one,” said Morrowseer. “Now there’s no point — the NightWings are already in the rainforest, so we have no reason to join the war. It’ll drag on endlessly, and more dragons will die every day, probably for generations. All of them wondering what happened to the amazing dragonets who were supposed to save them, but obviously failed.”

Sunny let out a furious sob, then whirled, pushed past Starflight, and fled up the tunnel, disappearing through the hole to the rainforest.

Morrowseer took a step as if to follow her, and Starflight jumped into his way.

“You can’t come to the rainforest with us,” he said, his voice shaking as badly as the earth below his claws.

Clay and Tsunami closed rank on either side of him. “He’s right,” Tsunami said. “Even if you pretended to swear allegiance to Glory, we’d know you were lying. At this point we wouldn’t trust you about anything.”

“You should go,” Clay said. “Fly across the sea, as fast as you can. Maybe you’ll make it before the volcano really explodes.”

“Not that we care,” Tsunami added.

Morrowseer’s expression was incredulous. “And who’s going to stop me? The three of you?”

“Yes,” Starflight said.

“And me,” said Fatespeaker’s voice from behind Starflight. He felt her tail brush against his as she slid up next to him.

The giant NightWing snorted, as if that only made things more amusing. “Here’s all the dragonets I want dead anyway,” he said. “In one convenient place.”

He opened his mouth, hissing up a fiery breath.

And then the volcano exploded.

It was like nothing Starflight had ever seen or imagined. It was like the earth turned inside out, collapsing the top of the mountain and shooting a vast, billowing cloud of flaming smoke into the air, which rose to the height of a hundred dragons and then fell, sending all that fire and rock and ash and death charging down the slope toward them faster than any dragon could fly.

“Run!” Starflight yelled, turning and shoving Fatespeaker in front of him. They tore down the tunnel with Tsunami right on his tail and Clay behind her. The heavy footsteps of Morrowseer thumped after them, but there was no time left to confront him.

Fatespeaker dove into the hole first. Starflight found himself turning and grabbing Tsunami, shoving her in next.

And so he was facing the cave entrance, and he saw the fireball come barreling at them, filling the tunnel wall to wall with bright orange flames. Morrowseer’s dark figure was silhouetted against the fire for a brief, horribly bright moment, and then suddenly the huge NightWing was gone, swallowed by the volcanic explosion.

A second later, Starflight’s scales were blasted with heat as if he’d fallen into lava. A stab of blazing agony went through both eyes, and he closed them with a howl of pain.

And then he felt wings wrap around him, and he realized it was Clay — Clay and his fireproof scales.

The MudWing lifted him, shielding him with his whole body, and shot into the tunnel.

Will the fire follow us? Starflight wondered dazedly. How does the animus magic work — will we cross over to the rainforest side halfway through and be safe or can it reach all the way —

Rain pattered down on his scales, sizzling softly, and he felt claws pull him from the tunnel and lie him down on wet moss. Cool wet leaves pressed against his face and he heard the murmur of hundreds of dragon voices against a background of rainforest night sounds, sloths chirruping, insects and frogs singing their night songs — and among the talons he was sure he felt Sunny’s. He felt the warmth of her scales that he’d know anywhere, even with his eyes closed (or … blind?), and he felt her press close to him for a moment and whisper … But why did it sound like Fatespeaker’s voice …? “Starflight. You were so brave.”

And then the warmth was gone, and he wondered if he’d imagined it, and then pain flared all along his body and he opened his mouth to scream but it hurt too much.

Something jabbed him in the neck and he had a moment to think, sleeping dart, what a good idea, and then everything, everything — the pain, the worry, Sunny and Fatespeaker, the truth about the prophecy, the fear of the volcano — everything faded away, and Starflight dropped into darkness as black as a NightWing’s scales.