I'm thinking that maybe it'd be better if I could try to fit all 10 books into one story link, rename this link, and rename the chapters to include book number. Or should I just use 10 different story links for each book?
What do you think?
The queen's prisoners were kept in the sky.
For the whole first day, Cyclone kept his eyes shut and his mind working. He thought and thought until his head hurt and he had to stop. There had to be a way out of this, and he was going to find it. He wished that he could trade his Skywing speed for Voidwing intelligence for just a day. He hoped the other Dragonets of Fate were alright. Cyclone knew that Clay was extremely terrified; Rockwings, the denizens of the Zircon Plateau, hated being high up unless the mountain they were on was a mesa, like another ground – all flat like a table and giving the illusion of ground-level.
With his wings folded over and clamped in Skywing metal clips, falling meant death. Horrible, painful, bone-shattering death. Though he wasn't entirely sure if that would be worse than Queen Vulture's plans for them, whatever they were.
His prison cell was at the top of a towering spire of rock. A narrow stone platform gave him just enough room to walk in a circle and lie down. There were no walls. There was no roof. There was only open yellow sky – to match the Skywings' scales – and the fierce wind whistling around his ears day and night.
On the second day, a hunk of meat hit him in the face.
Hunger forced his eyes open. An unusual Skywing dragonet was flying in loops around his perch. She looked like she was exactly his age. She had copper scales, lightning-yellow accent scales, and light goldenrod armor scales, eye ridges, spines, and horns. Her underbelly and wing membranes were jasmine. Veins of gold ran through her glimmering wing membranes, and clouds seemed to rise from her scales as well as her mouth. Her tongue was gold-grey and didn't fork, so she wasn't royal. She stopped and hovered in front of him.
Her eyes were startling, like two small electric-yellow orbs of lightning blazing through the clouds. Cyclone was pretty sure common Skywings normally had gold eyes. He wondered if there was something wrong with this one.
Something dead and bloody and charred lay on the stone in front of him. He sniffed at the blood a moment.
"It's not much, but this is better than what the guards were going to give you." The strange Skywing said. "Glad you finally opened your eyes; now we can talk."
Cyclone looked over the edge.
His rock-tower prison was one of about a hundred spires, spread out in a huge circle. Nearly every one had a dragon trapped at the top, like him. Like him, they each had thin metal clamps on the outer edge of their wings. In the center of the circle was a bowl of rock, like an empty lake, with a hill of sand at the bottom and sheer walls. Above the walls were rows of benches and caves for spectators to look down into the arena.
A balcony of marble with swirls of gold embedded into it jutted out from the palace. Two thrones sat on it, the left was empty, but the other was seating Queen Vulture. She wore a coat of golden chain mail; citrine gems and amber drops swirled in the gold. A row of tiny citrine gems was embedded into the ridge scales above her eyes, and more lined the top of her wings. Cyclone noticed that her armor scales were unusually scarlet. On the queen's right was a small dragonet who appeared to be six years old. Her peridot-yellow scales were decorated with a less extravagant version of the queen's own jewels. Her scales were dotted with ruby-red speckles. A jonquil, twelve-year-old dragon was on the queen's other side. He had a copy of the dragonet's, but the gold was replaced with silver, the citrine with sky-blue sapphires, and the amber with lapis lazuli. He had stripes of vermilion down his back.
Cyclone checked his own scales, but he found no sign of any weird red marks. The only thing odd he noticed was that his citrine scales were tinted slightly red closer to his back, but the red was cut off by his goldenrod armor-scales – as if it disappeared underneath them. Maybe he took after King Stratus more than Queen Vulture. His first comforting thought of the day.
At the bottom of his tower, there was only bare rock. But from up here he could see the heart of the Skywing kingdom stretched across the mountaintop. Queen Vulture's vast palace was carved into the gray-and-black-rocks and gold-brown soil of the peak. Half of it was inside tunnels and caves while the other half was open to the sky and bristling with defenses. Yellow dragons crawled across the mountain face, digging and blasting out new palace extensions until they were covered in stone and dirt and looked no brighter than Rockwings.
The war had slashed this kingdom with sharp talons. Cyclone spotted collapsed towers, scorch marks along several walls, and a ravine half full of dragon bones. Even as he watched, he saw two Skywings carry in the corpse of a marigold dragon and dump it in the ravine. They set fire to the body and hovered for a moment over the yellow smoke, their wings brushing against each other. Then they wheeled and flew away, leaving the body to blaze down into ashes and singed bones.
Cyclone looked northward and saw the mountain range that the palace's mountain, called Sky Mountain, was a part of. It poked out of the horizon, like the spines of a dragon's back. Far off to the east, a forest stretched all the way to the horizon. Past that the eternally-autumn forest eventually led to the sea.
He noticed that his breaths were no longer few and far in-between, like how it was under the mountain. There, he'd only take a breath every eight to ten minutes or so. Now, he was breathing at the same rate as any other tribe. Maybe when Skywings were high up, like in their mountains, they breathed normally because each breath was efficient enough in thin air – but they breathed every so often in normal, thicker air because they would get lightheaded and pass out if they didn't.
He glanced toward the other prisoners. He found them breathing more heavily than he was, especially the Lightwings and Darkwings and least the Heatwings and Coldwings and most of all the poor Seawings.
He also noticed the thin wires that twisted around his legs and neck. He'd been too shocked to pay attention to what the Skywings did with him when they first arrived.
The wires stretched from him out to the necks and legs of other prisoners, who all had them as well. One went to his left, to Winter's frost-colored leg on the next column, who was asleep with her tail over her nose. One wire was attached to the brick-colored dragon on his right whose pacing made the wire shake. The last three wires snaked out across the circle. He couldn't tell where those wires went; they disappeared into a tangled web above the bowl, connecting all the trapped dragons.
So even if Queen Vulture's captives could fly away, they'd have to all lift off at once . . . and then all one hundred prisoners would be stuck with each other. They wouldn't get very far that way. He wondered what would happen if one dragon fell of his spire. Would the wires drag down all the others as well?
"Aren't you going to eat?" asked the Skywing who was flapping around him.
"I'm not hungry." Cyclone said, tucking his head under his wing. He could hear her wingbeats as she circled him a few more times.
"You have to eat something." She insisted.
"Why?" Cyclone asked, keeping his head buried.
"Because I don't want you to die before I kill you." She said, her tone so matter-of-fact that it took Cyclone a few seconds to register what she'd said. He poked out his snout and stared at her.
"I've never fought a Skywing," She started, "all of the Skywing prisoners are put in the dungeons. I wonder how it would be like to fight someone who thinks like you. I bet it's totally different from fighting Seawings and Coldwings. But Her Majesty will make you fight some of the regular prisoners first, and if you die, then I don't get to fight you."
"And that would be sad." Cyclone said, raising one of the ridges above his eyes.
"Right. Not electric at all. The most electric will be fighting the Voidwing, though. Nobody's ever seen anything like that. What if he's so smart he can predict my moves? What if he's an Animus? What if he can read my mind and really knows what I'm going to do before I do it?" She tilted her wings and swooped underneath Cyclone. "At least he's eating. Hey, I wonder if she'll make you fight each other. But then I'd only get to fight one of you. Do you think you could beat a Voidwing? Probably not, huh?" Of course I could – not that I would do that to Anion, though. He thought.
He stood up and peered out at the circle of prisoners, looking for Anion. Even though he knew that falling meant death, his Skywing instincts loved the view of being so high up.
Cyclone imagined the vast circle of spires as a giant clock – Cyclone himself being at six – with a whole bunch of halfway points between the numbers. He could see several blue dragons who must be Seawings, Tsunami was hard to miss, clawing at her chains and snarling, at ten o' clock. Most of the trapped dragons were Seawings, Darkwings, Coldwings, Lightwings, or Heatwings – they must be prisoners of war.
Only one prisoner was purple, and he was at a right angle from Cyclone – to his left – he was nearly opposite from the only orange-and-brown dragon, Clay. Flare's ruby form was pacing, at two.
"See him?" asked the Skywing. "He doesn't talk much."
Cyclone snorted. "Ask him to teach you something – like how the dragons took Drako from the scavengers during the Scorching. Then you won't be able to shut him up."
"I'll do that." She said, apparently missing that Cyclone was joking. He stared at her, the light was brighter when reflected off her copper scales.
"Who are you?" he asked. "Are you a guard?"
"Ick, no. I'm Tempest." She said proudly. "The Queen's Champion. What's your name?"
"Cyclone." He said. "What did you mean about fighting me?"
"Wow." She said, "Are you serious? Have you been living under a rock or something?"
"Pretty much." Cyclone said with a grimace.
"Really?" She tilted her head curiously and thought for a moment. "All right. That's the queen's arena down there." She flicked her long, copper tail at the bowl below them. "There's a battle almost every day for Her Majesty's amusement. If you win enough battles, you go free."
"How many?" Cyclone asked, preparing to note how many dragons he'd have to kill.
"I don't know." She said. "Nobody's ever done it. Her Majesty always sends me in after any dragon has a few – usually four – wins, and I always kill them." She shifted her wings in a shrug. "I'm really dangerous."
And possibly crazy. Cyclone thought. How many lives has she taken? Does she keep count? Does she care?
"What are you looking for?" Tempest asked. He had been scanning the prisoners since spotting the Dragonets. Candor, the only gray dragon, was leaning out over the edge of his spire at eleven, studying the arena. Umbra was in her usual slumped position, on the spire to Candor's right. Ray was at four, a determined scowl on his face as he fidgeted with his chains. He found Flora three spires to the right of Cyclone, the only green dragon.
"Nevermind. I already found them." Cyclone relaxed.
She did a slow backward somersault in the air and tipped her wings at him. "I'd better go." Then Tempest dove toward the arena.
He watched her glowing copper shape spiral down onto the sand below. A few other dragons were in the arena, sweeping or checking the walls or guarding the seats. Cyclone noticed that they all hurried to move away from Tempest. Wherever she went, dragons fled, as if she had an invisible cloud of poison around her. None of them would even look at her.
Tempest didn't seem to care. She strode around the arena as if she knew everyone would clear out of her way. Her head kept turning toward the marble balcony, which jutted out of a cave overlooking the arena. Finally she flicked her tail and vanished into a dark opening in the side of the arena wall.
Cyclone stared until the world darkened and sleep took over.
. . .
Queen Vulture grinned at him evilly, lifting another of those horrible snakes so that its gold and sky-blue scales gleamed in the torchlight. "Now," she coaxed in a mockingly sweet voice, "let's try this again."
The malicious dragoness threw the lightning viper at Tsunami's face. He was forced to watch her scream as the meter-long snake coiled around her and let loose a barrage of electricity.
When the snake stopped, Vulture removed it from Tsunami's neck. "Choose Burn."
"Not . . . a . . . chance . . ." Tsunami panted.
The queen's eyes narrowed. "Very well . . . I suppose I'll just have to try something different tomorrow."
Cyclone shuddered awake.
As his eyes flung open, he was greeted with blinding light. When his eyes adjusted, he discovered that he was back on his spire, as if all that had never happened. Was it all a dream? How long has he been asleep?
Glancing around, he saw that water troughs had been added to the spires. Immediately, his eyes flew to his own.
Cyclone scrambled to the trough and drank thirstily, gulping down the cool, refreshing water. In his dream, Flare was the least affected by the lack of water, but Tsunami had it the worst. After a while the poor Seawing was just laying down on the stone floor with her black-blue, forked tongue flopped out onto the ground.
The sound of a beating drum brought his neck up. Water dripped from his mouth and onto the ground below him.
Cyclone crouched to peer over the edge. He hung on tightly with his talons and fought back the dizzying nausea caused by the huge, totally-different-from-what-he'd-grown-up-with view. The smell of the dead, rotting rabbit wasn't helping. He wondered if he could hit one of the Skywing soldiers if he threw a flaming carcass from up here.
As he watched, dragons started filling into the seats below. Nearly all of them were Skywings, but he spotted the crimson and wine of Heatwings here and there as well. There were even a few Rockwings. He thought of Clay, maybe they would demand his release. He saw Clay glance at them, but all they could do is look away. Or not. Cyclone thought with frustration.
He didn't know how long it took for the stands to fill, but the sun was blazing directly overhead when two of the guards let out a trumpeting roar. All of the other dragons snapped to attention. Across the stadium, there were heads bent, wings tipped, and talons crossed. Silence fell as everyone waited.
Queen Vulture stepped out onto the large balcony and spread her wings, catching the sunlight in the reflection of her jewel-embedded scales. The hissing hum that comes before any Skywing dragon was about to spout electricity emerged from the Skywings in the crowd. It took Cyclone a moment to realize that the Skywings were hissing in respect. He didn't join in.
"Bring in the combatants!" The queen called.
Tempest swept in from a tunnel that opened into the arena below the queen's balcony, waving to the crowd. Cyclone noticed that the applause was muted, as if most of the dragons weren't really sure they wanted to cheer for her.
Meanwhile three of the Skywing guards flew up to the prisoner on Cyclone's right. One of them seized the Heatwing's venomous tail and held it out of the way. The Heatwing fought, howling angry curses, as the other two unclipped his wires and hooked them to a ring in the center of the ledge.
The guards gripped him tightly and swooped him down to the sands below. They dropped him in a heap In the middle of the arena.
Tempest turned to look at him, her eyes glinting.
Cyclone was about to watch another dragon die.
I've decided to work in the claw and tail specialties in the upcoming arena battles.
I love Wings of Fate; it's so fun to write and imagine scenarios in. And I have the universe and general plot memorized so I can bring it wherever I go. And that includes the Dragonets. I love them a lot.
Thank you for reading!