Trapped by Skye Melki-Wegner

Author:Skye Melki-Wegner [Melki-Wegner, Skye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Whispers in the Black

Zyre fluttered through the dark.

Six lights bobbed ahead of her, flickering like constellations. Her mind raced, unable to process what she had seen. An entire flock of windwhispers—here, inside the Fire Peak! How was it possible?

When they reached another junction, the pack split again—three traveling to the left, and three to the right. Zyre hesitated before following the rightmost path, keeping a safe distance behind her quarry. Two of the windwhispers carried starflecks, while the third flew in darkness. It flew lower than the others, repeatedly landing on the tunnel floor before relaunching itself, as if its wings were injured, or something impeded its flight.

This shouldn’t be possible.

The Carrion Kingdom was a secret place—a place for carnivores. A lair for gigantic pterosaurs, not for tiny spies. Zyre’s kin didn’t even know this place existed …

Or did they?

Following the lights, Zyre remembered her grandmother’s words. When all is lost, my little one, follow the Salted Scorch …

The Scorch was supposed to lead to the Drylands, wasn’t it? To a place called the Brother Peak. Her grandmother had told her it was where the brotherhood dwelled. Zyre had always assumed it was another flock of windwhispers, living far beyond the wastes. Her long-lost kindred, just waiting to be reunited with their Cretacean cousins …

She had been wrong.

It all made a horrible sense. The sort of sense that crawled through Zyre’s bones and into her wing shafts, leaving her breathless with disgust. These windwhispers flew through the tunnels with utter confidence, like soldiers surveying their own domain.

The “Brother Peak” was the Fire Peak. The “brotherhood” was the band of soldiers of the Carrion Kingdom.

All along, the Salted Scorch had led to them.

But why had her grandmother told her to come here? Zyre’s grandmother had been nothing like her parents. She had been … kind. Soft. Her nest was a warm tangle of moss, of mauve-berries, of memories …

Of Lightning Peak.

How had her grandmother earned her nest on the Peak? Zyre had never asked. Deep down, perhaps she hadn’t wanted to know.

Zyre was so consumed by her thoughts that she didn’t notice when they reached another fork and the trio of windwhispers jerked to a halt. She skidded to her own midair stop, yanking back her wings and dropping to the tunnel floor to remain hidden.

“Get moving, Caelith!” one of the strangers snapped. “You know what’ll happen if we don’t fill this order by the quarter moon.”

“Yes, sir,” said a soft, male voice.

It came from the only windwhisper in the trio who did not carry a starfleck. It was the one who had flown close to the tunnel floor, repeatedly landing to steady himself. He sounded young and oddly … vulnerable.

Zyre’s claws clenched. Anurognathids were not supposed to be vulnerable. Her mother’s words rang in her ears—an echo of her dismissal after killing a beggar with broken wings. We are windwhispers, Zyre. We do not crawl.

If Zyre had ever displayed even a hint of such weakness, her parents would have beaten it out of her.

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