They flew for hours, staying in tight formation. Billy scanned the land as they travelled, his muscles tense and his eyes alert. Whatever had caused so much widespread destruction had to be incredibly strong. He knew how serious the situation was, and he wanted to prove the dragons right – that he, Dylan, Charlotte and Ling-Fei were the ones to save both their worlds. Every now and then, pebbles and dirt rained down from the underside of an island floating above them. The landscape beneath them stayed the same, with rivers flowing through ravaged desert ravines and tufts of peach trees dotting the land.
As they flew, Billy practised communicating with Spark using only his thoughts, sharing some openly and keeping others to himself. He found that flying with Spark was a joint effort. He felt the bond as if it was part of him, and through it he could feel the movements of Spark’s wings as if they were his own. The closest feeling he’d ever had to it was when he was surfing, flying on the waves. But this, real flying, this was so much better.
As the sun started to set and darkness crept up on them, the three full moons climbed high in the sky amongst millions of twinkling stars that seemed to wander like fireflies. It was the most beautiful sky Billy had ever seen. As the group flew round a sharp river bend, Tank called out, ‘We are almost there. Everyone stay alert.’ Ahead Billy saw a large mountain, almost as large as Dragon Mountain. They flew towards the side of it and swooped into the mouth of a cave that seemed to appear from nowhere.
‘It shouldn’t be so quiet,’ said Spark, concern in her voice.
When his eyes had adjusted, the first thing Billy spotted was what looked to be a large hoard of dragon treasure. He gasped when he saw what it really was.
Bones. Hundreds and hundreds of bones. Billy had never seen dragon bones before, but he suspected that these belonged to the dragons that they had come to find. He was suddenly filled with a deep sense of anguish, and he knew for sure that his suspicions were right.
Xing let out a screaming roar that echoed through the cavern.
‘We are too late,’ said Tank.
‘How… ?’ cried Buttons.
Xing flew round and round the pile of bones, her whole body trembling.
‘I had no idea,’ whispered Spark.
Billy felt an ache in his heart and tears pooled in his eyes. He could feel Spark’s loss and her agony. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, resting his hand on her side.
Spark hung her head. ‘This cannot be. I didn’t see any of this in my visions.’
‘Maybe we should get out of here before whatever did this… comes back,’ said Dylan anxiously, looking around.
‘We can’t give up!’ cried Charlotte. ‘If anything, this means we have to keep going. Right, Tank?’
‘Charlotte is right,’ said Tank. ‘We must find the nox-wings. And find out who is still alive. There must be survivors… somewhere.’ He turned his gaze to Xing. ‘Can you sense any magic nearby?’
Xing closed her eyes and her body thrummed. The others waited in silence as Xing focused her energy. A short moment passed before her eyes shot open. ‘There is a concentration of dark magic just north of here.’ She flew out of the cave with Ling-Fei and up towards the sky. ‘Follow me!’ she yelled to the others, who rushed to join her.
‘Look, there,’ cried Xing.
A red dome rose out of the horizon, its unnaturalness a stark contrast to the mountains stretching towards the sky. The dome was semi-transparent, with eight plumes of purple smoke rising from within it.
‘What is that?’ asked Billy. ‘It looks big enough to cover my whole neighbourhood back home!’ Something about the dome made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It looked as if it shouldn’t be there.
‘I do not know. It is new, and it reeks of dark magic,’ said Xing, wrinkling her snout. ‘It must be where the Noxious are.’
‘Then that is where we must go,’ said Spark.
A Surprising Reunion
Even from a distance, the red dome looked ominous. The group landed on a mountain a few miles away to see if they could figure out what was happening. For the first time since entering the Dragon Realm, Billy saw plants that weren’t peach trees. A dense forest of purple and black plant life surrounded the red dome.
‘Why have those plants around the red dome survived?’ asked Dylan. ‘Is that what all of the Dragon Realm used to look like?’
Spark shook her head. ‘Those horrific plants must be the by-products of the dark magic being used by the Noxious. Whatever they are doing beneath that dome, it is draining the rest of the Dragon Realm of its life and leaving bare what was once lush.’ She looked at the other dragons. ‘This is worse than what I have seen in my visions, and worse than what we suspected might have happened. This desolation, it is the work of dark magic, the work of the Dragon of Death acting somehow from the time in which she is imprisoned. I do not know how this is happening, but it must be stopped.’
‘I fear our clan is dead, or worse, having their life force sucked out of them to fuel this rampant dark magic,’ said Buttons.
For a moment, Billy again let himself imagine what it would be like to have his life force taken away, and was filled with the same empty, cold feeling.
Do not allow those thoughts, Spark told him. They will weaken you, and you must be strong.
