Lyria Silverwing's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The queen's low note faded, but the canopy did not settle. Lyria pushed off the healed leaf and rose above the swarm. Below her, a wall of thick vines split apart with a wet tearing sound. That part of the canopy had stayed shut for as long as she could remember. Now a dark gap opened in it, right above the queen's cradle. Something moved behind the gap, and Lyria could not see what. She hovered closer. The dragons followed, uneasy, their wings dimming. The gap breathed cold air at her face. Whatever waited inside would reach the cradle before she could stop it, and she was flying blind. She needed eyes in that dark. She needed a way to make the dark answer. A cluster of orchids grew at the gap's edge. Their petals glowed with a soft inner light, pink and white, and they trembled like they were about to speak. Lyria remembered a thing her mother once told her. Some blooms sing back to a singer. Push a note into them, and they carry it further than any voice. Lyria filled her sore lungs. Her throat still burned from the last song. She sang one clean note straight into the glowing orchids. The orchids caught the note and threw it back, louder and brighter. Their light flared and poured into the gap. The dark lit up. Lyria saw what stirred there. A second flight of butterfly dragons filled the sealed hollow. They were larger than her own, their scales grey and dull, their eyes shut. The queen's waking pulse had roused them. They pressed toward the light, drawn to the orchid song, hundreds of them packed in the dark. They were not attacking. They were lost. And they were pouring straight toward the cradle in a blind, crushing wave. Lyria had wanted to see. Now she saw too much. Her own flight could not fight that many. But the orchids still held her note, still glowed. She sang again, harder, and shaped the sound into a call, the same call that had bound her first flight. The grey dragons turned their shut eyes toward her. The nearest ones opened their wings and drifted up out of the hollow, following the light and the voice. They did not crash the cradle. They rose to her. Lyria kept singing until the last of them cleared the gap. When her voice gave out, two flights circled her instead of one. Both were hers now, bound by the same song. Far more dragons than she could ever hope to feed or lead. The cradle was safe. But the queen's pulse had opened more than one sealed place, and Lyria felt the canopy shudder again beneath her. Somewhere below, another gap was tearing.