Free Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret by Tui T. Sutherland Page B

Tsunami could be pretty unusually irritating, too.
    Too bad it didn’t work out more neatly for Morrowseer, Starflight thought with a twinge of satisfaction. Two unsuitable NightWings. Two annoying SeaWings. But two perfectly fine MudWings and SandWings.
    He thought Sunny was more than perfectly fine, of course. Who needed a poisonous tail when she was funny, smart, and kinder than any other dragon in the world?
    “If you want to be part of this, what I need to see from all of you,” Morrowseer growled, “is that you can take orders, work together, and do as you’re told.”
    “‘Take orders’ and ‘do as you’re told’ are the same thing,” Fatespeaker said to him.
    He glared at her. “That’s how important it is.” His dark eyes scanned the dragonets in front of him. “So. Your first test. You,” he said to Starflight. “All you have to do, if you can, is stay alive.”
    “What?” Starflight said.
    “The rest of you,” said Morrowseer. “Kill him.” He flicked his tail at Starflight.
    The dragonets all stared at him for a long, awful moment.
    “Can’t we kill her instead?” Viper asked, pointing at Fatespeaker.
    “Oooo, yes. I volunteer,” said Flame.
    “No,” Morrowseer nearly shouted. “What are you waiting for? That was an order! I said kill him!”
    He’s serious, Starflight realized. And then Viper lunged at him, her poisonous tail arching forward like a scorpion’s. On his other side, Ochre’s claws slashed at his wing, missing by a hair. And Flame made the fire-is-coming hissing sound Starflight remembered from his terrible training sessions with Kestrel.
    Morrowseer was probably hoping to see Starflight’sfighting skills in action, but Starflight didn’t care. He knew better than to rely on those. He also knew he couldn’t do what he normally did, which was freeze and hope nobody noticed him.
    Starflight ducked under Ochre’s wing, shoved Squid into Viper, dodged around Fatespeaker, and leaped out of the cave.
    Wind whistled through his wings as he sailed down the cliff. The shouts of the dragonets echoed behind him. He knew they’d be right on his tail.
    He had to find somewhere to hide.

Starflight shot down the cliffside and banked toward the ocean. His eyes scanned the ground below him frantically.
    The good news was, if he’d understood them right, the dragonets hadn’t been on the island very long and probably didn’t know its geography at all.
    The bad news was, neither did he.
    Right now he was on the other side of the volcano from the forest. Here, there were no trees. Everything below him was dark rocks or rivers of glowing lava — nothing to hide behind.
    Ahead of him there was a strip of black-sand beach that seemed to circle the island. He remembered Glory saying that the tunnel to the rainforest was in a cave above a black-sand beach.
    He wondered for a moment if he could find it, but there wasn’t time with the dragonets coming after him. He couldn’t outfly them for long either — Flame, like most SkyWings, had enormous wings, which made them faster than dragons from any other tribe.
    He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the bright colors of four dragonets flash through the sky, much closer than he would have liked.
    Only four.
    Fatespeaker was nowhere to be seen.
    Disobeying orders? Or sneaking up on me some other way?
    He didn’t have time to think about it. Starflight twisted into a dive and swooped as close to the ground as he dared. His black scales would make him harder to see against the rocks than if he were up in the sky.
    A blast of steam shot out of one of the vents in the ground and he flapped hastily aside, barely avoiding the heat. From this close, the rocks below looked even more like black dragon scales, but all melted and fused together. Like mine will be if Flame and Viper get their claws on me.
    The problem was, the dragonets were so close behind him that they’d see anything he did. They’d be able to follow him straight to