Moon Rising (5 page)

Moon shivered.
What was that?

But she knew. She’d known since she read the scrolls that said, “NightWing powers include mind reading and visions of the future.” That was where her nightmares came from — the future.

What she didn’t know was whether the visions were inevitable, or how to interpret them, or what in Pyrrhia to do about them, since, as far as she could tell, she was the first NightWing in hundreds of years to have the legendary powers of the tribe.

Lucky me.

And if the other NightWings wouldn’t be able to handle mind reading, she was pretty sure visions from the future weren’t going to go over well either. She hadn’t even told her mother about those. One curse was bad enough.

Turtle hadn’t looked sinister at all, despite the weird blankness of his mind
.
And she knew quite a lot about sinister vibes after living with the NightWings for the last few months. But perhaps any dragon could become dangerous as they got older (although … he hadn’t looked much older or bigger in the vision). Or perhaps he was simply much better at hiding his true nature than any other dragon she’d met before.

“Wow. A real queen,” Secretkeeper said. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“You see Queen Glory all the time,” Moon pointed out, only half listening.

“Queen Glory is barely older than you are,” Secretkeeper answered. “I mean a
real
queen, someone who’s ruled her tribe for years and years.”

Moon studied her mother sideways. Many of the NightWings harbored bitter thoughts about having a RainWing for their queen now, but she didn’t think her mother was one of the grumblers.

“All right,” her mother said, suddenly and briskly. “That’s enough hiding in shadows and ‘observing.’ Time for you to go find your cave.”

Already?
Moon was seized with a horribly familiar feeling of terror. “Alone? Aren’t you coming inside?”

“This will be good for you,” her mother said.
I hope. Remember, Secretkeeper: Be strong. Just turn and fly away.
“I love you, and I will see you soon.”

Secretkeeper took a step back, averting her face, and Moon glimpsed a thought track her mother had been carefully burying:
Oh, I hope this is the right thing. What am I doing? How do I know if this will be good for her?

Moon’s heart leaped.
She doesn’t want to leave me!
she realized with a surge of hope. But her mother was already hugging her and whispering hurried good-byes in her ear.

“Wait,” Moon said desperately. “What if I came next year instead? What if —”

“Trust me, moonbud,” her mother said, cupping Moon’s snout in her front talons. “You will love it here. Just keep your curse hidden, and you’ll be fine. Act normal, no matter what happens. And write to me soon! Good-bye!”

A moment later, Secretkeeper was just a dark shape winging away through the threadbare clouds, taking Moon’s heart away with her.

Moon stayed under the tree for a while, decidedly
not
crying, and watched more students arrive. There weren’t actually a thousand, she knew. There were only thirty-five students, and it was a privilege to be one of the first few invited to attend. Which made
Why me?
an even more mysterious question.

Well, then,
she thought, when she couldn’t put it off anymore.
Imagine this is the rainforest, and you’re hungry, and your mother’s been gone for three days, and you can smell a bunch of bananas inside the cave. If I could be brave enough to feed myself when I had to, I can be brave enough to walk into a school and find the place I’m supposed to be.

She shook back her wings, waited for a moment when all was quiet on the landing ledge, and darted forward into the yawning mouth of the entrance cave.

“Hello!” a voice accosted her loudly, while Moon’s eyes were still adjusting to the dimmer light inside. “Welcome to the Great Hall of Jade Mountain! Let me guess — you’re Moonwatcher, aren’t you? I’m tremendously good at guessing. In fact, one might even say I’m
mysteriously
good at it.” The welcoming dragon, whose scales were midnight black, lowered her voice. “Almost as though I’m …
reading your mind
, eh?”

Moon stared at the NightWing in fright. Had she been discovered already? Before even saying a word?
What will Mother say?

“Just kidding,” said the older NightWing. “MAAAAYBE. I’m Fatespeaker. I’m not a teacher like the others; I’m just helping wherever I can. Here’s your welcome scroll and your map.” She thrust two scrolls into Moon’s talons. “Hey, look, you have silver scales next to your eyes just like I do! Yours are bigger and sparklier, though. It is Moonwatcher, right?”

“Yes. Um. Moon.” Now she recognized this NightWing, which she should have been able to do from her first thought. She only knew two NightWings apart from her mother who didn’t radiate gloom and anxiety. Starflight had a more thoughtful energy, while Fatespeaker’s hopefulness poured out of her like overenthusiastic sunlight. Moon had seen the two of them from afar in the NightWing village several times, although they both had chosen to live with the RainWings instead.

She glanced around, wondering hopefully if Starflight was nearby. He was the NightWing from the false prophecy, and he’d been blinded when the volcano exploded. Usually Fatespeaker was with him, guiding him — but not today.

The enormous entrance cave looked as though it could fit four hundred dragons comfortably, with room for more to soar overhead. Sunlight poured in, illuminating the craggy walls and rippled ceiling, where cascades of golden-brown stalactites hung down, some of them reaching all the way to the floor to form twisted columns.

Hanging against the back wall was a huge bronze gong with three flying dragons carved into it. A banner woven of green vines had been strung from one massive stalactite to another in the center of the cave, with letters spelled out in giant purple-and-white flowers: Welcome, students!

Two tunnel openings yawned along the left wall of the cave; two more on the right. Next to each one, a map was posted showing where the tunnels went. The whole cave was busy with bustling dragons: families saying good-bye, friends saying hello, a few dragons carrying around prey or scrolls.

But Moon didn’t see Sunny or Starflight anywhere, to her disappointment. Her mother was right; they had been kind to her, and Moon liked them. She particularly liked that, for the most part, their thoughts matched what they said and did.

“Moon, Moon, Moon,” Fatespeaker muttered, rolling a scroll between her claws on the floor and scanning it closely. “Ah, here you are. Second tunnel on the left, fifth cave on the right.” She flicked her tail and grinned at Moon. “You’re going to love your clawmates.”

Apparently I’m going to love all sorts of things,
Moon thought, and then she noticed what Fatespeaker had said. “Clawmates?” she echoed. “What are those?”

“The dragons you’re sharing a cave with,” Fatespeaker said brightly. Moon’s wings shivered involuntarily, all the way out to her wingtips.
Sharing a cave? All the time?

“Oooo, here come some IceWings!” Fatespeaker cried. “Want to stick around and meet them?”

“N-no thanks,” Moon stammered. She hurried to the second tunnel on the left, and as she turned into it, she heard a whoosh of wings and felt a cold chill sweep through the cave. She peeked back around the corner and saw two haughty-looking ice dragons pace inside, frowning. No, she definitely did not want to meet them now or, in fact, ever.

“Fifth cave on the right,” Moon murmured to herself, moving on. The tunnel wound in a curving shape, like a slithering tail, down into the mountain. Overhead, grass-green and butterfly-blue and hibiscus-yellow glass globes hung from a wire strung along the ceiling, each of them glowing with fire so the walls were lit with color. It didn’t feel like she was going underground; it felt more like the sunlit canopy of the rainforest.

Moon had been picturing dark gray tunnels and cramped stone caves, but now that she thought about it, she realized Sunny wouldn’t have wanted her school to be anything like the gloomy caves under the mountain where the prophecy dragonets grew up.

Soon the tunnel straightened out, and Moon could see small cave openings all along either side. This must be the corridor of sleeping caves; she could sense that some of them had two or three dragonets inside already. Each cave she passed seemed to be bristling with chatter and wings and claws and spiky thoughts that clamored for space in her head.

Father said they have a library. I’m going to learn to read! Oh, I hope I’m not the only one who can’t read yet. That would be so embarrassing.

What do they eat up in the mountains? We’d better get seagulls sometimes. And soon. Gosh, I’m hungry. Would anyone be mad at me if I went looking for seagulls?

I wonder where the prophecy dragonets are. I wonder if they’ll notice me!

So cold here. I miss the desert.

They really expect me to share a cave with a RainWing?

Moon scrunched her eyes shut, trying to hold back the headache. This was what it had been like when she first joined the NightWing village. After the peace and quiet of solitary life in the rainforest, all those voices in her head had been a horrible shock, especially when they were all so resentful and hostile.

They still echoed in there, even though the NightWings were too far away now for her to actually hear them:
It’s not fair; Secretkeeper should be punished; I bet she thinks she’s better than us; imagine getting to eat
every
day; that dragonet doesn’t know anything about our tribe or what we went through living on the volcano; how can she ever be one of us?

She had a feeling — perhaps more of a wishful hope — that there should be a way to block out all the voices, but of course there was no one who could teach her how to do that.

Mostly she’d dealt with the NightWing noise by escaping to the tallest tree or farthest waterfall, but where could she go here? She’d be stuck in classes, or trapped in a cave with her “clawmates.” Her brain would always be full of the din of other dragons.

I’ll figure it out. I’ll
make
this work.

Or I’ll run back to the rainforest and deal with Mother’s disappointment.

Moon opened her eyes again and fixed her gaze on the fifth cave. She squeezed past a pair of chatting SandWings who were taking up most of the tunnel, and one of them stared at her intently with his obsidian-black eyes.

NightWing
flashed through his head.
Thorn doesn’t like them; we just sent a couple back to Glory as her prisoners; we have no idea what they can do in battle yet, especially if it’s true they really have no powers after all. Needs further study. She’s kind of cool-looking, with those silver scales by her eyes. Seems nervous. Twitching her wings back to look smaller than she is. Up to something, or shy?

Moon tried not to look back at him as she went by; she tried to seem unobtrusive and harmless and part of the shadows.

Her sleeping cave had a few stalactites hanging over the doorway like jagged teeth. She ducked inside and found more fire-lit glass globes strung across the ceiling in here: one green, one a fiery red-gold, and one yellow. Two more globes, unlit, rested on ledges on either side of the door, and there was another at her level on the far side of the cave. She picked each one up and breathed a small flame onto the candles inside to set them alight, then surveyed the space nervously.

It was nicer than she’d expected. The doorway made up one wall, and a sleeping spot had been arranged along each of the other three walls. One of these was a bare rock ledge, another was a pile of rainforest leaves and mosses, and the third was a woven green hammock ingeniously suspended from the roof.

Moon hesitated. It seemed as if the beds had been deliberately designed with different dragons in mind, but she wasn’t sure which one was meant for her. She knew which one she wanted … but how would someone else have guessed what she’d like?

Maybe she should wait for her clawmates and see what they wanted.
I wish I could have a private cave. Maybe if I asked Starflight really nicely …

She noticed that there were also five mahogany scroll racks arranged around the cave, about the height of her foreleg, each polished until they were as smooth as her scales. There was an empty one next to each bed and one on either side of the door.

She took a closer look and realized with a jump of happiness that the ones by the door were filled with scrolls. A little sign above these two said:
Free reading — hope you like them!

Moon slid her welcome scroll and her map scroll into one of the empty racks, then wrapped her tail around her back talons and started going through the scrolls by the door. It was a mix of all the kinds of things that interested her — history, adventure stories, ancient legends, encyclopedias of all the plants and animals in each tribe’s territory.