![]() ![]() Although whoever comes after her, we’ll be loyal to her, too.” Ostrich was right about one thing: by the next day, the queen’s one remaining sister had vanished into thin air, and nobody ever mentioned her name again. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be queen for a long while yet. “That’s absolutely right, dear,” his mother said, wrapping one wing around him. “Because she thinks she’d be better at it than the current queen.” “No one could be a better queen than Queen Oasis!” Six-Claws insisted forcefully. “Why would anyone do that?” “To become the next queen,” Quicksand answered with an amused expression. It makes sense to dispose of her.” “Challenge the queen?” Six-Claws interrupted, startled out of eavesdropping. She’s much closer to challenging Her Majesty than the daughters are. That dragon always looks like she’s murdering you with her eyes. Do you know how hard it is to stuff olives under those conditions?” “She’s creepy,” Ostrich agreed, “but the one Queen Oasis should get rid of is the other daughter, Blister. “There was one flopping around the courtyard shrieking for an hour yesterday. The one who likes cutting the legs off jackrabbits just to see what they’ll do.” He wrinkled his snout. “So if she keeps Blaze, one of the others has to go.” Quicksand snorted. “She’s keeping it, then?” “Her Majesty has always said she’d allow three heirs, no more,” said Ostrich, taking the other edge to help him lift it onto the stone table. The queen is calling her Blaze.” “Really?” Quicksand dragged a tray of bread loaves out of the oven. His father looked up from one of the cauldrons, steam obscuring his face. She nudged Six-Claws affectionately with her wing as she passed him. He was in the kitchens that afternoon, pounding beetles into a glittering black powder for his father, when his mother came in. ![]() But he’d never imagined anyone doing that to his queen. That is, he knew intellectually, from school lessons, that a queen’s daughter, granddaughter, sister, or niece could challenge her to a fight to the death, and whoever won would be queen. It wasn’t until he was five years old that he learned there might one day be a different SandWing queen. This was a conversation he heard regularly around the dinner table in the small barracks room assigned to his family. If anyone asked, he could have rattled off a list of reasons why she was a great queen. And of course, since his parents were loyal to Queen Oasis, he was loyal to her as well. He signed up for every patrol, whether it was harvesting brightsting cacti or hunting desert foxes or firebombing suspected dragonbite viper lairs. He learned to fly earlier than any of the other dragonets who hatched in his year. Six-Claws loved growing up in the SandWing palace, surrounded by open sky and rolling desert dunes as far as the eye could see in every direction. His sisters, meanwhile, taught him that you should really not tell your sisters who you have a crush on, unless you want the entire palace to know about it. #Wings of fire pdf how toHis father taught him how to make camel shish kebab and date soufflé. ![]() His mother taught him how to keep watch and how to fight and how to defend his queen at all costs. Ostrich and Quicksand’s lives were devoted to the queen, but Six-Claws and his two sisters came a close second. His mother was one of Queen Oasis’s most trusted guards and his father was the head chef in the queen’s kitchen. Unlike most dragons, Six-Claws had a remarkably happy childhood. ![]() Note: This story begins before the War of SandWing Succession and ends shortly after the events of Winglets: Assassin. TITLE PAGE DESERTER EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT FROM WINGS OF FIRE: LEGENDS: DARKSTALKER ALSO AVAILABLE COPYRIGHT ![]()
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