“No!” Sunny screamed.

“Sunny! Stay back! The viper’s still alive!” Deathbringer yelled from overhead. She realized that he was holding Glory in the air, and the RainWing queen was fighting to get away.

But no one was holding her back, and she didn’t care about the snake. She didn’t care if she did get bitten; she wasn’t going to leave Clay lying there, dying.

She scrambled across the courtyard and threw her wings over him, shaking him with her talons. “Clay!” she yelled. “Clay!”

He looked dazed but his eyes were open. Maybe the snake had missed him. She couldn’t see it anywhere. Maybe —

“Ow,” Clay said, trying to sit up. “Ow, I — my leg — wow, that really hurts —” He pressed his claws to his head and looked as if he might pass out.

And then Sunny saw the wound — the fang marks in the flesh of Clay’s right thigh. A black starburst had already appeared around the two holes, pulsing bigger and bigger across his warm brown scales.

“Clay.” Sunny started to cry. “Please don’t die.”

“I’m — I’m, uh — open to suggestions,” he said with a small, breathless laugh. He reached toward his leg then flinched back, gritting his teeth in pain.

Tsunami thumped down on his other side and let out a gasp at the sight of the snake bite. She twisted to look at the courtyard around them. “Where’s the snake?” she said. “Where did it go?”

“I don’t know,” Sunny said. She could barely see through her tears. She leaned against Clay, trying to send all the warmth from her scales into him.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Clay said, although his claws were clenched and his wings were starting to shudder. “It’s not such a bad destiny, Sunny. I’d die to save you and Starflight over and over if I had to.” His voice caught on the last few words and he stopped, breathing hard.

“I order you not to die,” Tsunami said, grabbing his shoulder. “Clay, stop, STOP IT. Stop dying RIGHT NOW.” Her normally bossy voice was full of panic.

“Ow!” Deathbringer roared from up in the sky, and a moment later, Glory crash-landed into Sunny.

“No, no, no,” Glory said, looking at the growing burst of black. Her scales had turned lily-green and white — the colors of fear and panic and pain. “No, we have to be able to stop this. There must be something we can do. Starflight!” she bellowed. “Think! How do you stop a dragonbite viper’s poison? The scrolls must have said something,” she muttered, touching Clay’s scales. He winced as her claws brushed the blackened area. “Why can’t I remember anything? Why is it spreading so fast?”

Sunny looked around for the first time and realized that the dragons along the walls had fallen completely silent, staring at them. Blister and Blaze were watching, too, one with cold interest and the other with horror.

Over by the wall, Starflight was trying to find them, stumbling forward with his claws held out, although Fatespeaker was trying to drag him back.

And … there was something hurtling out of the sky toward them. Something that blazed fiery orange and trailed smoke. A dragon with burning scales.

“Out of the way!” Peril yelled. “Sunny! Get everyone out of the way!”

Tsunami reacted first, leaping over Clay to shove Sunny and Glory back. The heat from Peril’s scales swept over them as the SkyWing hit the ground and nearly slid into Clay.

“You can’t die!” Peril yelled at him. “I won’t let you!”

“Don’t —” Tsunami started forward. “What are you —?”

“I’m burning out the poison,” Peril said, and she stabbed her smoldering claws straight into the center of the black starburst on Clay’s leg.

With a roar of crazed agony, Clay surged up as though he was trying to fly away. Tsunami, Glory, and Sunny flung themselves at him and pinned him down, but he was bigger and stronger and fighting hard.

“Deathbringer, get down here!” Glory yelled, and a moment later the NightWing was there, adding his weight to theirs.

Sunny grabbed Clay’s front talons in hers and held on for dear life. “Clay, it’s all right! She’s helping you!”

But Clay was in too much pain to hear her. He jerked and thrashed, his howls digging into Sunny’s heart like IceWing claws. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. The awful smell of melting scales and burning flesh assailed her, as if she were burying her snout in the NightWing volcano.

She felt more dragons join them, holding down Clay’s wings and keeping his claws away from Peril. When she opened her eyes again, it was who she expected: Riptide and Starflight — and also who she didn’t: Thorn, clasping Sunny and Clay’s talons between her own.

“Mother,” she whispered with relief, resting her head against the warm SandWing scales.

“This should have been me,” Thorn said, “but I couldn’t get to you in time.”

Sunny shook her head and chanced a look at Clay’s leg. Peril still had her talons buried in his scales, carving out everything that had been touched by the black venom. There was a scorched, gaping, bleeding hole in Clay’s thigh and Sunny had to look away quickly before she threw up.

“I’m not sure he can survive this,” Thorn whispered gently to Sunny. “That big of a burn …”

“He can,” Sunny said fiercely. “Maybe no one else could, but he can.”

“Fireproof scales,” Starflight said, across from them.

“Oh. I hope …” Thorn said, and then she spread her wing around Sunny’s back and pulled her close, falling silent.

A few moments later, Peril said, “That’s all of it,” in an exhausted voice, and stepped back. “I think. It better be. I don’t see any more venom, do you?” she asked Sunny. “Clay? Clay? Are you all right?”

Clay had passed out. His wings were limp and his head lolled to the side when Riptide let go of it.

“Is he all right?” Peril said, her voice rising. “Tell me it worked!”

“It worked,” Glory said. She rested her talons on Clay’s chest, which was rising and falling evenly.

The black venom had stopped spreading; Peril had burned it all out of him. Sunny could see his fireproof scales trying to fix themselves, warm brown smoothing over the scorched spots. But the hole Peril had had to gouge out of his leg was too big for the scales to knit over. Clay was going to be scarred and probably limping for life.

But he was alive. He’d survived the snakebite. That was all that mattered.

“Thank you,” Sunny said to Peril. She automatically reached to hug Peril, but the SkyWing jumped back before they could touch.

“Seriously,” Tsunami said, rubbing her face with her talons and sitting back. “You — that — I don’t know what to say.”

Glory had her tail curled around her talons and was holding her wings in close as wave after wave of odd colors spread through her scales. Deathbringer put one wing around her, gently, and she let him.

“Maybe,” Clay mumbled, and they all leaned closer to hear him. “Maybe Peril is the wings of fire.” He lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Sunny saw the nervously delighted expression on Peril’s face and felt as if her heart might explode.

The NightWings just made that up — “wings of fire” was nothing but a pretty phrase to them. But it is something, and it’s more than Peril’s burning scales. Peril helped us because Clay is wonderful. He was kind to her when no one else ever was, and he believed in her, no matter what she’d done. His heart is the real wings of fire.

She glanced around at her friends. Clay’s heart, Tsunami’s courage, Glory’s determination, Starflight’s loyalty … I think the wings of fire are inside all of us, inside every dragon. Maybe you just have to reach inside and find it.

A sinister hiss interrupted her thoughts, and she whirled around as a jolt of fear ran through her.

The dragonbite viper was slithering up between two of the stones, eyeing the group of dragonets with a dark, cold, lidless glare.

Peril leaped forward and smashed her talons down on it. The snake flailed horribly for a moment, and then crumpled into a shriveled, burnt-out husk.

“Ah, well,” said Blister’s voice, behind them. “That would have been convenient, killing all my enemies with one snake, so to speak.”

Blister flicked her tail up and studied them for a long moment as they turned to face her. Tsunami squared her shoulders and glared back at her, talons clenched as if she was ready to fight.

“But I think I’ll deal with you later,” Blister said. Her eyes shifted toward the hordes of gathered dragons and Sunny realized that Blister wasn’t sure what they would do. If Blister tried to kill the prophecy dragonets, right here in front of everybody … would they stop her? How would they all react?

“For now,” Blister said, “I’m finally just one step away from the throne that is rightfully mine. And that step, of course —” She turned to her sister, Blaze, who cowered back against the IceWing queen.

“Is killing you.”