Sunny thrashed furiously against the huge wings that wrapped around her.

“Quick, while they’re all distracted,” she heard a voice hiss. A shower of raindrops pattered down on Sunny’s head as the dragon holding her ducked through the leaves. It was hard to see much more than black scales, but Sunny realized she was being dragged into the forest, away from the tunnels and the crowd of dragons.

But I have to make sure Starflight is all right! She clawed at the arm that pinned her wings down, but the NightWing only grunted and held her tighter.

Wet leaves squelched and slithered under their talons. From the sounds around her, Sunny guessed there were three NightWings, including her attacker, sneaking away from the scene while everyone was focused on Starflight and Clay.

That’s … ominous. Maybe she should try to find out what they were up to. She stopped struggling and listened.

The dragons were moving fast and quietly, even without flying; in just a few heartbeats, Sunny couldn’t hear what Glory and Tsunami were shouting anymore. They also moved purposefully, as if they knew the forest well.

A hunting party, Sunny thought with a shiver. These are probably some of the dragons who came through the tunnel to kidnap RainWings.

What do they want with me?

“Here,” one of the dragons said after a while, and they all stopped. Even with Sunny’s sharp hearing, the dragons roaring behind them sounded like distant thunder muttering on the horizon. Rain poured down harder and harder, and the ever-present insect noises of the rainforest had gone into hiding.

Sunny was dumped onto the ground, mud squishing between her claws and splattering her tail. She sprang up and hissed at the dragon who’d been carrying her. He barely glanced down at her before turning to the other two.

“Now what?” he demanded. “The whole plan is ruined. I’m not staying here to kowtow to a RainWing dragonet.”

“Me neither,” said one of the others, a female who was little more than a dragonet herself. Sunny guessed she was about nine years old. She was bedraggled, wet, bony, and hunched over, and yet when she snorted a burst of flame, Sunny could see her eyes gleaming with stubborn ferocity.

“Plus they’ll probably kill me,” said the big dragon. “You saw how they were about Mastermind. If they remember that I was his assistant … I mean, I was the one who locked them up or stuck them to the walls for him. They’ll be after my blood if we stick around here.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” hissed the last dragon, another male, much less brawny than the one who’d been carrying Sunny. He had a few missing teeth and his tail was bent at the end, as if it had once been broken and then fixed incorrectly. “We were promised the rainforest. This is where I want to live, but not as second-class dragons. Imagine, RainWings telling us what to do!”

“Well, we’ve got her, like you suggested,” the big male said to the dragonet, flipping one wing toward Sunny. “So what do we do with her?”

The NightWing dragonet lashed her tail and narrowed her eyes at Sunny. “We use her as a bargaining chip. We can hold her hostage until they take our whole tribe to the RainWing village and make one of us queen.”

“Like who?” said the other male. He spat a small flame at the branch that was dripping on his head. “Greatness is weak and won’t fight for it. Queen Battlewinner had no brothers or sisters and no other daughters. There’s no one else to claim the throne.”

“I’ll take it,” said the dragonet. “That’d be even better than being in the prophecy. If that RainWing can be queen, why not me? I’m bigger than her.”

“True,” growled the big one behind Sunny.

“Well, I have bad news,” Sunny spoke up. “They won’t give you anything in exchange for me. I’m nobody. Just a weird-looking SandWing with a useless tail.” She snapped her mouth shut before her voice could start wavering. She’d been saying things like that her whole life, but she’d never felt awful about it until today. If there were no prophecy … then that meant she really was just weird-looking and useless.

No, that’s not how it works. I’m weird-looking because I have a destiny. There’s a reason I’m like this. There has to be.

The NightWings regarded her with skeptical expressions.

“That would be annoying,” said the big one. “I’d be pretty angry if I carried this little thing through the forest and got my scales scratched up for no reason. Fierceteeth, I thought you said she’d be worth something.”

Fierceteeth! Sunny remembered what Starflight had told them about the dragonets in the NightWing kingdom. Wasn’t Fierceteeth his half sister?

“We can use her if she’s who I think she is,” said Fierceteeth. She jabbed Sunny painfully in the ribs. “Aren’t you Sunny? Starflight yapped on and on about a Sunny whenever he was asleep.”

Sunny blinked at her, too startled to answer.

“Yeah, this is her,” Fierceteeth said, answering her own question. “My brother’s totally in love with her. He’ll agree to anything to get her back.”

That might actually be true, Sunny thought with alarm. Does he really talk about me in his sleep? Only a few hours had passed since she’d stood in the rainforest clearing, in the middle of dragons preparing to invade the NightWing island, and Starflight had told her he loved her — that he’d always loved her.

She still didn’t know how she felt about that. She didn’t know what this feeling was, the strange ripples of surprise every time she remembered his expression. It was I don’t know what to do and somebody loves me and don’t hurt him and really, right now? and imagine how happy you could make him and why me? really, me? and but it’s Starflight. Her sweet, smart, anxious friend. She’d never thought of him like that, not once.

It was still hard for her to believe that he meant it. None of the other dragonets took her seriously. She’d always assumed he was the same way — that he thought she was too little and cheerful to be worth listening to.

Focus. Don’t let them use you to hurt your friends.

“Didn’t you see Starflight’s injuries?” she said. “He’s too wounded to have any say in what happens next. And Glory couldn’t care less about me. Face it, you can’t use me. You should go back and rejoin the other NightWings.”

“Nice try,” Fierceteeth said.

“What if she’s right?” said the NightWing with the missing teeth. “What if they don’t want her? What if we expose ourselves and then they just kill us?”

“Strongwings won’t let them do that,” Fierceteeth said, stepping closer to the burly dragon.

They’re a couple, Sunny realized. A really strange couple. Strongwings was nearly twice the size of Fierceteeth, but he kept turning toward her and ducking his head as though he was waiting for her to order him around.

“I know how we could find out,” said the other male. He drew something flat and shiny and oval-shaped from under his wing. In the moonlight, it shone like polished black glass and fit neatly between his front talons. And it stayed perfectly dry; the raindrops seemed to swerve to avoiding raining on it.

“The Obsidian Mirror,” said Strongwings with a hiss of admiration. “Nice work, Preyhunter. I wondered if someone would think to save it.” He leaned in and touched the smooth surface with one claw. “No surprise that it wasn’t Greatness. She was more worried about saving her own scales.”

“She never used it anyway,” snorted Preyhunter. “Even when we needed to know what the RainWings were up to. She said she didn’t trust anything that was enchanted by an animus. Coward. I don’t think the queen knew she wasn’t checking it.”

“It doesn’t work as well as it used to,” Strongwings said. “Everyone thinks Stonemover did something to it before he disappeared.”

“What is it?” Fierceteeth asked.

“A really old animus-touched piece of treasure,” Strongwings explained. “This was one of the most important things we had to save from the treasure room when the volcano erupted and buried that part of the fortress, back when I was a small dragonet. We use it for —” He stopped and glanced at Sunny. “Hmm.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll kill her before she can tell anyone anything important,” said Preyhunter.

Go ahead and try, Sunny thought fiercely. No one else has managed it yet.

He tilted the mirror so it caught the light of the two moons glowing through the clouds above them. The third moon was just a thin crescent, barely cresting the tops of the trees. The rain had slowed to a misty drizzle.

“Show me how it works,” Fierceteeth demanded. She snapped a branch off the nearest tree and set the end on fire, leaves crackling wetly in the flames.

“We just need a name,” said Strongwings. “Uh. Someone important.”

“That RainWing queen, obviously,” Fierceteeth snapped. He looked blank and she hissed at him. “Glory.”

“Glory,” whispered the dragon holding the Obsidian Mirror. He breathed a plume of smoke across the dark glass. The smoke coiled and twisted, winding like a thin snake around the outer rim of the mirror for a few heartbeats. All at once the smoke vanished as if it had been sucked into the mirror, and a moment later, one tendril curled up from the center of the glass, white tinted with purple, curving like a dragon’s neck.

“Mangrove!” the tendril barked abruptly in Glory’s voice. “Make sure none of them have any more of those spears. Jambu, you and Grandeur start counting them — the NightWings, just to be clear, not the spears.”

Fierceteeth grinned, her teeth gleaming whitely in the moonlight. “This is happening right now?” she whispered, and Strongwings nodded. “Brilliant.”

Yes, I can see how that would be a useful trick, Sunny thought bitterly. Especially for convincing other dragons that you have mystical mind-reading abilities.

A pinkish wisp of smoke curled up on the mirror next to the first one.

“You bet, no problem, Your Majesty,” it said. “Except, uh … so, counting. Um. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really good at it. Up to, like … twenty? That’s a pretty big number, right? There probably aren’t more NightWings here than that.”

“Jambu, there are at least two hundred NightWings here,” Glory snapped.

“Hum,” he said. “That’s like … two twenties? Maybe three?”

“I cannot even roll my eyes at you right now,” Glory said. “Find me a RainWing who can count.”

“I’ll do it.” A darker coil of smoke appeared, right next to the first. It took Sunny a moment to recognize the voice of Deathbringer, the assassin who had been ordered to kill Glory but instead helped her escape the NightWings.

“Funny,” Glory said. “Tell me another. I love jokes about trusting NightWings.”

“You exasperating creature,” Deathbringer said. “Haven’t I not killed you multiple times already?”

“I knew it,” snarled Preyhunter, curling his claws around the mirror. “I knew Vengeance was right about him. Deathbringer is a traitor.”

“We’ll take care of him when the rainforest is ours,” hissed Strongwings.

“Fine,” Glory’s voice said. “Go count NightWings. I’ll have Starflight check your numbers when he wakes up.”

“A ringing vote of confidence,” Deathbringer answered, sounding amused. The dark wisp of smoke coiled back into the mirror, as did the pinkish one. Glory’s tendril of smoke twisted for a moment, alone on the glass.

“He will wake up, right?” she finally said quietly.

“I think so.” A new spiral of mud-colored smoke wound its way up from the mirror, and Sunny felt her heart jump hopefully at the sound of Clay’s voice. He always made her feel better — even from the other side of the rainforest. “But he was burned pretty badly. We should use the darts to make him keep sleeping until he’s healed as much as possible, I think. It’ll hurt a lot when he wakes up.”

Oh, poor Starflight. Sunny curled her tail around her talons.

“And his eyes?” Glory asked. “Will they be all right?”

“I don’t know,” Clay said.

“All right, I did a perimeter sweep,” Tsunami’s voice said bossily as a blue twist of smoke appeared on the mirror. “I made sure any gaps were filled with RainWings holding spears and blowguns, and I added a few more guards on the tunnels. I don’t think they look very scary, but hopefully the NightWings will.” The blue smoke whisked around the other two tendrils as if Tsunami was circling them to land.

“That’s why I need you two here,” Glory said. “The healers who took Starflight back to the village can look after him until we get there. But for corralling NightWings, you’re the most intimidating dragons I have.”

“Mwa ha!” Clay said. “That’s me! Intimidating! Roar!”

“Well, you are until you do that,” Tsunami said.

“Hey, at least you’re not bright pink,” Glory said. “That’s extremely helpful right now.”

“It’s all right,” Clay said. “Sunny’s probably at the village already. She’ll look after Starflight, no matter how upset she is.”

Sunny winced and Fierceteeth gave her a sharp look.

“Why is she upset?” Glory asked.

“That slime lizard Morrowseer,” Tsunami answered. “He told us that the prophecy is fake. He made it all up as part of the plan for the NightWings to take over the rainforest.”

There was a long pause. The three dragons around the mirror all glanced at Sunny. She stared down at her claws.

“WHAT?” Glory exploded. Her curl of smoke shot up to twice its previous size.

“Yeah,” Clay said. “Isn’t that crazy? I guess that’s why Morrowseer wanted us to choose Blister as the next queen — he had this whole —”

“I AM GOING TO BITE THAT DRAGON’S HEAD OFF AND STUFF HIM IN A VOLCANO,” Glory roared.

“Too late,” Tsunami said. “Since that’s kind of already happened. The volcano part, I mean. He’s a pile of ashes now.”

“Are you serious?” Glory demanded, talking over her. “The whole thing was made up? There’s no destiny, no wings of fire? No reason for us to be trapped in a cave our whole lives? No amazing mythical SkyWing who’s infinitely better than me? Absolutely no need for any of us after all?”

“Hey, I’m mad, too,” Tsunami said. “But —”

“LET’S GO BACK AND KILL HIM AGAIN.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Tsunami pointed out. “No destiny means we can do whatever we want. The Talons of Peace can go shove a puffer fish up their noses.”

“But Sunny was really upset,” Clay said. “She was always kind of excited about the prophecy.”

Kind of excited? Sunny lashed her tail. It wasn’t just some fun adventure I was looking forward to, Clay.

“Oh, Sunny will be fine,” said Tsunami. “You know her. She’s always happy about everything. By tomorrow she’ll be smiling again, and by next week she probably won’t even remember the prophecy. She just needs something new to care about, like making Starflight better.”

“Well, I can think of lots of ways to keep her busy,” Glory said. “For one, she can find me someone to yell at. I seriously cannot believe this. If I didn’t have to act like a queen right now, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.” Her voice trailed off into muffled growling.

Sunny glared at the Obsidian Mirror. This was exactly what she hated most about the way her friends saw her, although hearing them say it so bluntly made it much worse. As if acting happy means I don’t really care about anything. As if I just need to be distracted and I’ll forget about the whole point of our existence and all the dragons who are counting on us. As if my brain were the size of a blueberry, three MOONS.

She caught Fierceteeth looking at her with a wry smirk.

“Not too impressed with your intelligence, are they?” said the NightWing.

Sunny scowled back at her.

“It sounds like they like her,” said Strongwings dubiously. “But not like they think she’s particularly useful or important. I’m not sure they will give us the rainforest in exchange for her.”

I’m not either, Sunny thought. Not that they should. But … what would they do to get me back? Anything? Or will they figure, “Hey, she’ll be fine as a hostage. Remember she’s always happy about everything. And that should be pretty distracting for her! Perfect!”?

Perhaps I’ll just rescue myself, then. That’ll show them. And then I’ll fulfill the prophecy all by myself, too, and then they’ll see that it was real all along.

She knew that was exactly the kind of thing her friends would roll their eyes at her for saying. But if no one else cared about their destiny anymore … if she was the only dragonet who still believed in it … what was she supposed to do?

The NightWing holding the mirror tilted the glass so the smoke tendrils swirled together, and then he shot a small burst of fire across the surface. The smoke vanished, and the black glass went still.

“There’s another option,” Preyhunter said, regarding the others with a sly expression. “Someone else who definitely does want this stunted SandWing — pretty badly, I’d guess.”

Fierceteeth inhaled sharply. “You’re right. Three someones. We could sell her to the highest bidder — whoever’s willing to raise an army and take back the rainforest for us.”

Uh-oh. Sunny was not about to be handed over to one of the SandWing queens. She’d spent enough time in cages and prisons already, thanks very much. She snuck a look at the leaning trees and tangled vines around them, searching for the closest gaps in the foliage.

“Start with Blister,” Strongwings said, his dark eyes glinting in the moonlight. “She always pays her informants well, and she needs us the most.”

What does she pay them with? Sunny wondered. All the SandWing royal treasure was stolen by the scavenger who killed Queen Oasis, wasn’t it? And if there’s any left, it would be in the SandWing stronghold, which Burn controls.

“But Burn would love to have this weirdling in her collection,” argued Preyhunter. “From what I hear, a deformed dragonet would fit right in with the two-headed creatures and stuffed scavengers.”

“I am not deformed,” Sunny said hotly, but none of them paid any attention to her.

Queen Scarlet had been planning to hand Sunny over to Burn for this ominous “collection” as well. Sunny was quite sure she never wanted to see what else Burn had collected.

“Who has the strongest army?” Fierceteeth asked. “Burn, right? And it would only take us a few days to get to her, if we fly straight over the mountains and don’t stop.” She flicked Strongwings in the snout as he opened it to speak. “Don’t ask stupid questions. We can’t use the tunnel to the Kingdom of Sand. They’ll be guarding — YEEEEOOOOW!”

Fierceteeth’s howl of pain sent raindrops flying off the leaves around them as Sunny sank her teeth into the vulnerable spot on her tail. Strongwings lunged to grab Sunny, pried her jaws loose, and threw her aside.

“Fierceteeth!” he cried, bending over the NightWing dragonet. “Are you all right?”

Behind him, Sunny hit the ground rolling, sprang up with her wings spread, and shot into the trees.

“Don’t let her get away!” Fierceteeth shrieked. “Strongwings! Catch her! Kill her if you have to!”