The Lost Heir by Tui T. Sutherland Read Free Book Online Page A

know who’s at the top of my list,
Tsunami thought, shooting a glare back at her. “All right, let’s go,” she said to Riptide.
    The sky-blue SeaWing waved his talons in front of Clay’s face to make sure there was no reaction. Finally he sprang into the sky with the dragonets close behind him.
    Tsunami forgot to be mad at Glory and Starflight as they flew over the bay. Green-and-white islands glowed like scattered jewels in the ocean below them. Several of them were shaped like claws, curving neatly through the water. From up by the clouds, she could see part of the spiral pattern in the archipelago. And when they swooped down close to the sea, she saw pearlescent pink dolphins leaping in the clear water.
    Glory told Clay about the dolphins, and his head went up hopefully. “Can we eat them?” he asked.
    “No,” Riptide called back over his shoulder. “Queen Coral has forbidden it. She thinks they might be distantly related to us.”
    Tsunami glanced down at the sleek darting shapes. Related to dragons? What a bizarre idea. It didn’t really fit with how she’d imagined her mother.
    Well, I can stop imagining soon,
she thought.
    She had no idea how the SeaWings had managed to hide a palace on one of these islands. From the air, it seemed like you could see every thing — the white sand below the azure waters around the islands, every hole in the twisting rock formations, every palm tree and cormorant nest and scraggly bush on every cliff. There were a lot of small islands, but surely the enemy had searched every one by now, after eigh teen years of war.
    “Here comes our welcoming committee,” Riptide said, just loud enough for Tsunami to hear.
    She spotted a formation of blue and green dragons flying toward them — fifteen or more, with huge wings and bared teeth. She could hear them hissing from a distance.
    “Uh-oh,” Riptide muttered.
    “Clay, stop and hover,” Tsunami instructed. He paused in the air, with Glory close beside him.
    “What’s happening?” Sunny asked, lifting her head from Starflight’s shoulder as they caught up. Starflight, for once, didn’t say anything. His jaw was set, and it looked like he was using all his energy to stay aloft with Sunny.
    “The advance guard,” Riptide said. He swung in a slow circle around the group and stopped in front again, facing the incoming dragons. “They make sure no one even gets close to the Summer Palace.”
    A few moments later, they were surrounded. The flapping wingbeats filled their ears and pushed the air currents around.
    “Rrrriptide,” growled the dragon in the lead. His scales were a green so dull it was almost gray, like stone where moss had been scraped away. He had tiny bone-pale eyes that never seemed to blink under a knobbly protruding forehead, and his horns twisted strangely toward each other. Tsunami noticed that, unlike Riptide, the new dragon had no battle scars. Which either meant he stayed away from the fighting — or he was a very skilled fighter.
    “What are you dragging home now?” he snarled.
    Riptide looked him straight in the eyes. “I’ve found the missing princess.”
    That’s not how
I
would have put it,
Tsunami thought. I
was the one doing all the finding out there.
    A ripple of shock went through the other SeaWings. Tsunami’s scales felt like insects were crawling under them as the guards all stared at her. She lifted her snout and tried to look regal and imposing.
    “Oh, really?” said the leader. “You, Riptide? Of all dragons? What an unusual coincidence.” His unsettling eyes scanned Tsunami from wing tips to claws, as if she were a dead eel someone had left half-eaten on the beach. Tsunami wanted to shred the skeptical, arrogant look right off his face.
    “And who are you?” Tsunami demanded.
    Riptide winced. “This is Shark,” he said. “Commander of palace defense and brother to the queen.”
    “Oh,
really
,” Tsunami said, deliberately making her tone even more insolent and