“You don’t have to kill her,” Sunny protested as Blister advanced on Blaze.

“Perhaps,” Blister said over her shoulder. “But I certainly want to.”

“Can’t you fight for me?” Blaze pleaded, turning to Queen Glacier. “I don’t want to die like this.”

Queen Glacier looked torn. She had to know there was no chance Blaze would survive this duel, which meant she’d get none of the promised territory for the IceWings — and she’d be left with a bordering kingdom ruled by a queen who’d been her enemy for eighteen years.

But Sunny could see that Glacier wanted to be just and fair. She couldn’t fight a SandWing’s battle for her, not one-on-one for the throne like this.

The IceWing shook her head. “I’m sorry, Blaze. This is your fight.” She touched Blaze’s wing with her own, briefly, then turned and flew up to join her fellow ice dragons on the wall.

Blaze faced her sister, wide-eyed with fear.

“You can forfeit,” Sunny cried. “You don’t have to fight! Let her be queen and live.”

“It’s too late for that,” Blister snarled. “She wanted to be queen badly enough to fight for it all these years. She can’t back down now that it’s just the two of us.” With a swift, sudden movement, Blister darted at Blaze, bit down viciously on the edge of one of her wings, and darted away again.

“Ow!” Blaze shrieked. She staggered back, staring at her wing. “Three moons, it’s bleeding! I’m bleeding!”

“Oh, brother,” Glory said, but there was pity in her expression.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?” Sunny asked her friends.

“It’s royal SandWing business now,” Starflight said, touching the bandage around his eyes and ducking his head. “They’ll fight, and Blister will win, but the important thing is that it means the war is over. There will be a queen on the SandWing throne, and no one else has to die.”

“Except Blaze,” Glory observed.

The two SandWings circled each other, hissing and jabbing with their tails like two scorpions.

“Poor Blaze,” Sunny said. “It doesn’t seem fair.” She curled into Clay’s side, leaning against his scales.

“I wish someone else could be queen,” Fatespeaker said. “Blister is so creepy.”

“And smart,” Starflight agreed. “Who knows what she’ll do once the throne is really hers.” He scratched his claws across the stone. “With a united SandWing army at her clawtips and the treasure, if she’s the one who stole it … she could easily be the most dangerous dragon in Pyrrhia.”

“Isn’t there anyone else?” Sunny asked. She turned and saw Smolder still standing in the shadows of the doorway. He met her eyes and started toward her, carefully avoiding his sisters.

“I don’t think so,” Starflight said. “None of the three sisters have exactly taken the time to have dragonets.”

“Hello,” Smolder said, sliding up to them. Flower was perched on his shoulder, staring around at all the dragons with her big, brown, dragonlike eyes. “Aren’t you all dramatic troublemakers. Do you think Blister is going to let me live? I’m guessing no. This would probably be a good time for me to run away.” He cast a speculative glance at the sky. “But to where? Could you use another Outclaw, perhaps?” he asked Thorn.

“You have some nerve,” Thorn snapped. “I should kill you myself for that trick you played, locking us in the library.”

“As if I had a choice,” Smolder said reproachfully. “And it didn’t even work. Burn was this close to killing me until she got your message about meeting her here tonight.”

I should be mad at him, too, Sunny thought, but she couldn’t be. He wasn’t evil — he wasn’t even mean. He was a dragon in a terrible family, in a hard situation, in danger of being put to death like his brothers at any moment. He could have killed her the moment he got his talons on her. He could have left her in the tower. Maybe she shouldn’t like him, but she did anyway.

Smolder pointed to his sister’s dead body with a rueful expression. “I must admit, I never expected to outlive her.”

“It probably won’t be by much, if that’s any consolation,” Thorn said bluntly.

“Smolder,” Sunny broke in, “are there any other dragons in line for the SandWing throne? Did Queen Oasis have any sisters or other daughters? Or did any of these three have dragonets?”

Smolder shook his head. “Mother was very strict and very careful. She had just the three daughters, so someone could inherit one day, but she didn’t want a lot of challengers. So she had no more eggs, and the rest of us were not allowed to have dragonets either.” He fell silent for a moment. “I was in love once. She was so angry when she found out…. I don’t even know what she did, but I never saw Palm again.”

“You should have better choices,” Sunny said, stamping her foot. “All three of your sisters are terrible.” Blaze let out another yowl of pain as Blister slashed her claws across her nose. Sunny had a feeling this fight could have been over already, but Blister was playing with Blaze, showing off for the audience.

“Why can’t someone else be queen?” Fatespeaker asked. “If Glory can be queen of the NightWings … who says it has to be a member of the royal family?”

“Good question,” said Glory.

“Who else would have the authority?” Starflight asked. “Why would the other SandWings listen to anyone else? If any dragon could take the throne, it’d be anarchy. There’d be challengers trying to grab it every other day.”

“I know,” Sunny said, “but still … if all the royal options are awful … it seems like there should be a way to give the SandWings someone else, a better queen.” Her wings drooped. After everything they’d been through, all the worry about the prophecy and all the danger they’d been in and all the dragons who’d tried to kill them … was this how it ended? They stopped the war, but gave the SandWings an evil queen? Was she supposed to say, “Oh, well, good enough?”

Flower wriggled off Smolder’s back and came over to pat Sunny’s talons in her odd comforting way. The little scavenger looked up at Sunny and squeaked, waving her paws.

“Scavengers are so crazy,” Tsunami said. She ducked her head to sniff at Flower. “Look at her, just standing here in the middle of all these dragons. Where’s her survival instinct? This is the one who stole the treasure, right? Hey, squish-face, this is all your fault, you know.”

Flower wrapped her arms around one of Sunny’s ankles and tugged as if she was trying to drag Sunny somewhere, squeaking loudly.

“What?” Sunny asked. She looked at Smolder. “What’s she trying to say?”

He shrugged. “I never know.”

Flower jumped up and down, flapping her paws. Sunny tilted her head, confused. The scavenger ran over to the pit of sand, flapped again, ran back to Sunny, tugged on her ankle, and ran back to the sand. To Sunny’s astonishment, Flower threw herself down and started to dig with her paws.

“What in the three moons …” Smolder said. “I’ll never understand scavengers.”

“She’s trying to tell us something,” Sunny said. She followed Flower to the sandpit, glancing up at the obelisk. Did Flower know that the dragon she’d killed — or helped to kill — was buried here? “This is a little morbid, Flower.”

Flower whacked Sunny’s front talons, pointed at the sand, shouted something like “YIBBLE FROBBLE!” and went back to digging.

“All right,” Sunny said, and she started to dig, too. What could she be trying to tell us?

“What are you doing?” Glory demanded.

“Digging,” Sunny said. She glanced up at Blaze and Blister. Blaze had three more bleeding wounds, and Blister was pacing smugly around her. Surely the fight couldn’t last much longer.

“Why?” Tsunami asked, coming to stand next to her.

“Because Flower wants me to,” Sunny said. “I don’t know, but it feels like maybe it’s important.”

Tsunami and Glory exchanged glances. Sunny could guess what those looks meant: “Another crazy Sunny idea. Look at her, following a scavenger’s instructions, as if that makes any sense.”

“Scoot over,” Tsunami said. She flexed her claws and drove them into the sand.

“You too,” Glory said to the scavenger, joining them.

Tsunami and Glory began to dig, wing to wing with Sunny. A moment later, she looked up and found Thorn digging busily beside her as well.

She tried to hide her smile, but she couldn’t.

Their talons swept the sand away quickly, and soon Sunny could see the gleam of white bones below them.

That’s Queen Oasis. Why does Flower want us to dig her up?

Before long, they had the front half of the dragon’s body uncovered. She was huge, too, even bigger than Burn. She must have been terrifying when she was alive.

Flower scrambled into the hole they’d dug and carefully climbed around the bones until she was standing beside the dragon’s skull. She tapped on the skull’s jaws and looked up at Sunny.

A sudden shiver went down Sunny’s spine, as if she knew what was about to happen, although she couldn’t have put it into words.

She reached down and pried open the queen’s mouth.

Inside were two sacks, falling apart and full of holes, but otherwise just like the one the scavengers had given her in the forest.

Behind her, she heard Glory gasp. She understood what this meant.

Twenty years ago, the night Oasis died — Flower must have hidden some of the treasure in the dead dragon’s mouth, before she ran off to hide in the dunes. Maybe she thought she’d have a chance to go back and get it, or maybe she didn’t want to be caught with it.

Sunny carefully lifted the sacks onto the sand. Emeralds and gold coins and tiger’s-eye bracelets spilled out through the holes. She sliced open the sacks with one of her claws.

And there it was at last: the Eye of Onyx.