Read Online The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland - Free Book Online Page A

Clay stood in the shallows, shivering as the icy water washed over his talons. He wished he could take fire with him underwater. He wished he knew what he was getting into. He really, really wished he didn’t have to go alone.
    But he had to do this. He glanced at the corner of the cave where Glory had disappeared.
    “Are we sure this is the only way?” Sunny asked, splashing the river with her tail. “I bet I could think of some more ideas, with a little more time.”
    “We don’t have any more time,” Clay said.
    “Follow the current,” Starflight said to Clay. “Don’t leave the river. If it goes out into the world anywhere, the current should take you there.”
    If , Clay thought.
    “Stop and rest anytime you find a place to breathe,” Starflight went on. “If you can’t find a place where the river surfaces, don’t panic or you’ll run out of air faster.”
    Clay felt like he was panicking already. When he thought about swimming into inky blackness with no idea if he’d ever breathe again, his whole body tightened with fear.
    He felt the brush of wing tips next to his and turned. The river eddied around the blurry outline of Glory beside him.
    “Go hide,” he whispered.
    “Thank you, Clay,” she said quietly. “I’ll never admit I said this, but … I want you to know I would never have made it through the last six years without the four of you.”
    “Same here,” Clay said. Growing up under the mountain without Glory, Sunny, Tsunami, and Starflight would have been too miserable to bear.
    “Me too,” Starflight said.
    Sunny nodded. She twined her tail in Glory’s and touched one of Clay’s talons.
    “Good luck,” said Glory. She stepped out of the river and melted back into the shadows.
    “Be really, really careful, Clay,” Tsunami said. Her chains were taut around her legs and neck as she leaned toward them. “Come back if you have to. Don’t keep going if it’s too dangerous.”
    “Don’t you dare die,” Sunny added, flinging her forearms around his neck and beating his wings with hers.
    “You all stay safe, too,” Clay said. He took a deep breath, then another. “I’ll be rolling away that boulder before you know it.” He couldn’t delay any longer. He nodded to his friends and dove into the river.
    Swimming helped warm him a little, but his scales still felt crusted with ice by the time he’d made it down the tunnel to the battle cave. He swam to the far wall, where the rock sloped down into the water. He floated for a moment, feeling the current tugging him. Then he inhaled and dove down.
    By the flickering light of the torches above, he could see the patch of wall that was darker than the rest. Tsunami was right; this hole was smaller than the gap to the guardians’ cave. Well, it was flatter, but wider, too, more like a snarling dragon mouth, complete with sharp outcroppings like teeth. He couldn’t see anything but darkness on the other side.
    Clay reached one forearm into the hole and felt nothing but emptiness. Dark water rushed past him.
    He arrowed to the surface and took the longest, deepest breath of his life, hoping it wouldn’t be his last. The water closed over his head in an awful, final kind of way. He tried not to think about that.
    With a few swift kicks, he swam back to the hole and grabbed the rocks on either side to brace himself. He folded his wings tightly to his body and snaked his head through the hole. His shoulders followed, then his wings, scraping painfully against the stone teeth. His front talons found a lip of rock ahead of him and he seized it, pulling himself forward.
    He felt his shoulders slip into open space just as his haunches got stuck. His back claws scrabbled for a grip. He tried to flatten himself to the rock, squishing himself sideways. He wriggled as hard as he could, remembering Starflight’s instructions. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t —
    He popped loose so suddenly that he spun forward, head over tail, and had to